August 31st - RIP August!!! & family gathering

I...cannot...believe...that...August...is...OVER!!! *WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!*

Actually the end of summer this year is for me kind of bittersweet.

I had an awesome summer. Best summer in...well, ever. No, seriously:

Last summer (2005) we moved into this house, dealt w/ the up-to-the-last-second stress that we wouldn't GET the house after negotiating for weeks, moved, and spent a week in California for my Dad's re-wedding (no major issues w/ Dad getting remarried, but it wasn't exactly stress or emotional baggage-free).

The summer (2004) before that we were comfortably in our old house, and we'd JUST gotten Max, so we were trying to train a new (gigantic) puppy in a tiny house, and I worked for this incredibly stupid day camp in Cherry Hill called "let's drop the over-privileged people's brats here with the disinterested, underpaid counselors and tell the music teacher she has to put on a show in 2 weeks w/ 30 minutes rehearsal a day, and by the way she's responsible for not letting it RAIN that day because there's nowhere else to put the show but outside" Or the name may have been "Cherry Hill Arts Camp". I forget. Eh, the money was excellent, the hours were lovely, the people were absolute crap.

And the summer before that (2003) we graduated from college, found an apartment, pulled off a pretty damn good wedding for 22-year-olds w/ some family help, worked in a WAWA deli, found and prepared for two decent teaching positions, and poor Bobby fell off a ladder at his 2nd job as a movie theater manager, and broke his arm VERY badly, had surgery, etc. We were nuts that summer.

So this summer was calm and easy-going, by comparison. Oh, and all summers previous to those aforementioned sucked because A) I was waitressing and B) not living with Bob. Or I was in High School dating ponytail-guitar boy. Well, we all need a ponytail-guitar boy in our lives at somepoint so we can appreciate a LOVING, CARING, HUMAN BEING when we start dating one of those next.

So we went over to Bob's grandparent's apartment last night. Bob's mom brought dinner (baked Ziti, which I had to be very careful of, with the GD) She thankfully made (store-bought *gasp!* ) meatballs that everybody picked on but I adore because I think they've got a lot more flavor than regular meatballs...and I was raised on store-bought stuff anyway. Bob was very sweet, slipping me an extra meatball...gotta have my protein, he says. In a more hormonal moment that would have made me cry, I think.

There were 9 of us around that kitchen table...Grandmom, Grandpop, Bob's Mom, Bob's Dad, Nick, Laura, Sean (her bf who we all like and approve of and I'm sure has the older female relatives considering a nice July wedding two years from now), Bob, and me. It was quite ruccus, the conversation monstly centered around tales of Uncle Frank, my father in-law's older, wilder brother. See, Frank did it all, from alcohol to drugs to girls to fast cars to stealing the giant cigar from the Moe statue on top of Pep Boy's. Chemical imbalance there, I say. Well now he has 3 wilder kids to contend with. I won't even get into their issues, that's not quite such a source of family pride. Although the one that's our age has the sweetest-looking little 3-year old daughter.

At one point in the conversation about Uncle Frank's habbits, someone said, "Pot". Well dear Grandmom who apparently can't hear much anymore says loudly, "oh, no, I wouldn't have hit him with THAT, it would have hurt his head!"

...'bout peed myself.


Well today is another do-nothing day. Oh now, pardon me, we have a termite inspection at 10:00 AM. Whoo-freakin'-hoo. These overcast, cold, somewhat rainy days are starting to get to me. Today would have been a great day to go down the shore one last time, too. Oh well.

Must do something productive today...like...finally cleaning out the cedar chests and getting the summer to-do list all checked off. And do I really want to do that? No. Cause if the list is done...then summer's over. And we're back where we started.