Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high
Oh, Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry
One of these mornings
You’re going to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take to the sky
But until that morning
There’s a’nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mammy standing by
Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high
Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry
Ah, vacation…
“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy,” sang so many, not the least of whom was the soulful and less than sanguine, Janis Joplin.
Ah, family vacations…
“There’s a’nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mammy standing by,” unless, of course, you are on a More Than Camp vacation, like Eric and Lauren and their progeny in Broken Hallelujah: notes from a marriage. Who can forget this near misadventure of their middle child:
“My middle child, never one to think before he acts, began scaling the 45-foot edifice with the gusto of one nearing the summit of Mount Everest. The initial ascent wasn’t difficult, as the foot and hand holds (think: rock climbing wall) were pretty close together and relatively easy to navigate. By the time he was about halfway to the top, the climb advanced from obvious to indecipherable. I could sense his slowly mounting panic as he could not, for the life of him, figure out the next hand-hold foot-placement combination that would facilitate his climb.
“Drop into the lake,” I shouted from beneath him, but fear had now paralyzed him and the siren worthy wail was already forming in his throat. Like the good mother I often am and just as often pretend to be, I thought, “Shit, I’m going to have to climb that damn thing after him.”
My husband, of course, was smiling from halfway across the lake, atop a different and less challenging lake “toy,” typically oblivious to the familial drama taking place right in front of him. I pulled myself up and onto the iceberg and positioned my body in a preparatory climbing stance. “Hold on, Jake,” I yelled above the roar of lake swimmers, bouncers, and climbers, “I’m on my way!” I cast a last ditch glance at Eric to see if this potentially daunting job could be taken over by someone with both more body strength and climbing confidence. I got my answer immediately, as I was treated to the sight of my husband, feigning a director’s squint and hand blocking motion, as he framed my back side. He used the opportunity of my desperate glance towards him to mouth the words “big ass” before he was lost in his own self-congratulatory hilarity. As I turned back to focus on my nearly hysterical son and the task at hand, I made a mental note to withhold sex from him for at least a week.”
“Your daddy’s rich, self-centered, somewhat of an ass (ok–I changed that line a bit:)
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry”
Ah, GOOD TIMES!
And so, it is in this spirit of quintessential summer fun, that I give you, dear reader, my TOP FIVE FAVORITES from my very own family’s summer vacation to Vermont:
1. Finding out that though my publisher, Constantine, was practically single-handedly able to have Broken Hallelujah fly off the eBook shelves in Romania, he was (as I predicted) unable to coax the actual book in hand to take flight on the shores of Lake Champlain.
2. Watching my husband employ not one, not two, but three GPS systems in his never ending quest to find the most direct traffic-free route to get us to our destination; secretly relishing his frustration, as each GPS seemed to take on the personality of its owner:
GPS owned by husband: “Go left, I mean right, DAMMIT, don’t you listen???? Now we will NEVER get there! The sky is falling…the sky is falling.”
GPS owned by me: “Make the next left off the highway to the (dare I say it) Rest Area! Yay! Who wants Combos and Gummy Bears???:)”
GPS as part of family car’s standard equipment: “Turn, turn, turn…back in time….to the EIGHTIES…I am Spicoli’s van, man…go left, go right, it’s all good, man…”
3. Eating and drinking ourselves into a food/alcohol coma each night (compliments of the Full American (read: obesity) Plan). Several vacation photos of my husband illustrate this fact, but he asked me to refrain from posting his actual photo on this blog; fortunately, I was able to find this uncanny likeness–practically his doppelganger–online:
4. Having almost no Internet access, thereby allowing my entire family to bask in the breathtaking glory of the great outdoors…
5. Having almost no Internet access, therefore granting our innocence a brief reprieve and allowing us to believe, for at least one more day, that Anthony Weiner (aka Carlos Danger, giggle, giggle) was still the righteous redeemer, and not the sorry sexter–with the surprisingly well-proportioned schlong (oh, Anthony, it’s as if I never really knew ya!)–who, sadly, compromised our stoic belief in our civic (not to mention our religious and scouting) leaders.
Ah, summertime, and the livin’ is (most certainly) easy….
Updike gets me every time… —–John Updike, The Maple Stories
Funny, sexy, hot book by Leanne Tankel 