Summer

Ahhhhhh Summer,

I love summer! It’s the most wonderful time of the year :) A time where stay at home moms facetiously joke about committing  suicide but also kind of mean it a little, and a time when children’s cute little lips turn blue. (No, you sick bastard! Not because they drowned in the pool! Because they eat a lot of blue raspberry jumbo pops! God, I can’t believe you would even think of that. You are so fucked up in the head.)

(Question: How long does it take claire to make you feel a little uncomfortable and slightly offended? Answer: About 2.3 seconds.)

I’ve been thinking lately about some of my favorite childhood memories of summer, and I thought I would share some with you...

1)   There was one summer where every day I would sit on the front lawn next to my poodle and knit potholders. I would also play my harmonica for passersby. Let that one marinate for a minute.

2)   My dad once accidently left the hot tub on for almost a week. It ended up spilling into the pool and making the pool water 98 degrees. I enjoyed this, so I didn’t tell him for another week.

The gas bill that month was an extra $535.

3)   In the summer of 4^th grade I choreographed an entire dance routine to “Hey Ya!” by Outkast. It was mostly me doing the “snorkel” and I only ever preformed it for J-Kwon. (See favorite childhood memory number 8 for reference).

4)   One summer I ate the snowball that had been sitting in the freezer since Christmas morning.

5)  I once went through a phase where I was obsessed with paper mache. I made a bunch of useless crap, from (multiple) “decorative” vases to a spaghetti bowl that you couldn’t eat spaghetti out of.

6)  I once caught a bad case of bronchitis and had to stay in the hospital for a night. I had lost a lot of weight and the doctors didn’t know why, so as a precaution I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere unless I rode in a wheelchair. I really took advantage of all my newfound attention, and also made a powerpoint about how I wanted to go to Disneyland for my “make-a-wish”. Turns out you don’t get a “make-a-wish” for being dehydrated.

7)  I used to hate how water balloons broke so easily, so I would take special, unbreakable 24” mega balloons (you know, the balloons they use to advertise at car lots?) and fill them with 30 gallons of water and leave them all over the backyard. This really pissed my parents off.

8)  I had a blow up pool toy killer whale that I pretended was a real whale. I named him J-Kwon, after the beautiful mind behind the 2004 smash hit “Tipsy.”

 

Look at that stylin' muthafucka. We were total pals.

 

9)   One summer I was mistakenly charged with the theft of some shoes and was sent to a harsh juvenile center in the middle of the desert and forced to dig holes in search of treasure. Long story short, I met a tiny, illiterate black kid and we ended a generational curse and there were lizards and peaches and stuff. Yeah, that was fun. 
 

10)I once ate two Wendy's Texas double cheeseburgers and large fries. My dad ordered the same meal except he couldn't finish his.

 

 

I'm about to tear up over here. This is getting too wonderfully emotional. Nostalgia is the like vexatious ex-spouse of emotions, always there to remind you that you are old now, and nothing will ever be the same.  

Happy summer to all, and to all a good night.