I was thinking the other day that I have a lot of things that make me happy in my life. I’m happy that I still like watching the Minnesota Twins, even though they aren’t doing very well this year. I’m happy that fall temperatures are just around the corner. I’m happy that I’m not Muammar Gaddafi right now.
I was so busy this summer that for a short time, I forgot I was happy. But then August arrived.
Ahhh, August. That light at the end of my proverbial summer tunnel. The pot of gold at the end of my humid
rainbow. The carrot dangling from the end of my yard work stick.
Each year, August provides me with a short respite from the extracurricular activities to which I regularly subject myself. The summer musical is done and there is a gap of a couple of weeks before tryouts for the fall play. There is little activity in my world of part-time photography. Most of the weeds on my lawn have slipped into a drought-induced dormancy…
This August provided me with a particularly blissful lull. This year’s “Girls’ Weekend” for the women in the Wilmes family spanned five days…August 9-13. Kathy and Lindsay were headed for Door County, Wisconsin for five days, and since I had accrued a couple of days of vacation that were burning a hole in my pocket, I bestowed upon myself a four day weekend of my own. Just me and the cat.
The nice part about a four-day break is that it gives a person a joyfulness that spills over into the days preceding. The anticipation that comes with knowing that the time off is on the horizon is delicious.
When I was a kid, our family would take a week-long vacation every year. Without fail, an annual summer trip found us heading “Up North,” and trips to places like Paul Bunyanland and Deer Park and the Alexandria resorts were some of the fondest memories from my youth.
Somewhere in the ensuing 40 years, I’ve become a lump, and the joy I get from staying home rivals the memories of those wonderful childhood excursions.
The first thing when I got home from work on that Wednesday evening, Torii, my feline co-vacationer, thought we needed to order pizza. I looked at her and said, “you don’t eat pizza.”
“Then you’ll have to eat it yourself,” she meowed.
Forty-eight hours of leisure had begun.
While I certainly enjoy recreation as much as the next guy (we squeezed in a total of nine movies over four days), I get nearly as much pleasure from tending to my to-do list that grew longer over the summer. The relief that comes with knowing that long-overdue tasks can be put behind me brings me as much enjoyment as watching the Jason Bourne trilogy on DVD.
And that, my friends, is what I did on my summer vacation. Torii, who was apparently a bit lonely for the women of the house, seldom left my side. My home office also doubles as the coat closet, entertainment library, extra mattress storage and exercise room. My needy kitty spent the bulk of the four days hanging out next to me on the seat of the exercise bike or curled up in my orange plastic “IN” basket.
Although the break didn’t seem long enough, it nevertheless made heading into the next workweek somehow less daunting. I guess if you count the days of anticipation, the actual vacation, and the residual elevation of mood over the next week, I had about a two week break!
Life is back to what I consider normal now. Tryouts for the fall play were Monday evening, I’m back to taking sports pictures for the county schools and Torii is back to ignoring me.
And somewhere in my 70s, I’ll be hanging out at the Senior Center, reminiscing with some other wrinkled person with cataracts about that August back in 2011 when me and my cat sat around for four days watching movies, scarfing down pizza and swilling Diet Mountain Dew.
I hope I won’t have to listen to him ramble on about his trip to Arizona.
I was so busy this summer that for a short time, I forgot I was happy. But then August arrived.
Ahhh, August. That light at the end of my proverbial summer tunnel. The pot of gold at the end of my humid
rainbow. The carrot dangling from the end of my yard work stick.Each year, August provides me with a short respite from the extracurricular activities to which I regularly subject myself. The summer musical is done and there is a gap of a couple of weeks before tryouts for the fall play. There is little activity in my world of part-time photography. Most of the weeds on my lawn have slipped into a drought-induced dormancy…
This August provided me with a particularly blissful lull. This year’s “Girls’ Weekend” for the women in the Wilmes family spanned five days…August 9-13. Kathy and Lindsay were headed for Door County, Wisconsin for five days, and since I had accrued a couple of days of vacation that were burning a hole in my pocket, I bestowed upon myself a four day weekend of my own. Just me and the cat.
The nice part about a four-day break is that it gives a person a joyfulness that spills over into the days preceding. The anticipation that comes with knowing that the time off is on the horizon is delicious.
When I was a kid, our family would take a week-long vacation every year. Without fail, an annual summer trip found us heading “Up North,” and trips to places like Paul Bunyanland and Deer Park and the Alexandria resorts were some of the fondest memories from my youth.
Somewhere in the ensuing 40 years, I’ve become a lump, and the joy I get from staying home rivals the memories of those wonderful childhood excursions.
The first thing when I got home from work on that Wednesday evening, Torii, my feline co-vacationer, thought we needed to order pizza. I looked at her and said, “you don’t eat pizza.”
“Then you’ll have to eat it yourself,” she meowed.
Forty-eight hours of leisure had begun.
While I certainly enjoy recreation as much as the next guy (we squeezed in a total of nine movies over four days), I get nearly as much pleasure from tending to my to-do list that grew longer over the summer. The relief that comes with knowing that long-overdue tasks can be put behind me brings me as much enjoyment as watching the Jason Bourne trilogy on DVD.
And that, my friends, is what I did on my summer vacation. Torii, who was apparently a bit lonely for the women of the house, seldom left my side. My home office also doubles as the coat closet, entertainment library, extra mattress storage and exercise room. My needy kitty spent the bulk of the four days hanging out next to me on the seat of the exercise bike or curled up in my orange plastic “IN” basket.
Although the break didn’t seem long enough, it nevertheless made heading into the next workweek somehow less daunting. I guess if you count the days of anticipation, the actual vacation, and the residual elevation of mood over the next week, I had about a two week break!
Life is back to what I consider normal now. Tryouts for the fall play were Monday evening, I’m back to taking sports pictures for the county schools and Torii is back to ignoring me.
And somewhere in my 70s, I’ll be hanging out at the Senior Center, reminiscing with some other wrinkled person with cataracts about that August back in 2011 when me and my cat sat around for four days watching movies, scarfing down pizza and swilling Diet Mountain Dew.
I hope I won’t have to listen to him ramble on about his trip to Arizona.
