Summer? What Summer? I Cancel Summer!

Yup. Cancelled it.

Last night was the annual camp-out in the neighbors yard, which is beyond awesome even in the rain, but I think the girls got four hours of sleep. The GFYO was up until ten playing Wii Soccer with The Kid. Today, two of my kids enjoyed parent-less hanging out and swimming as guests at a yacht club, while the other scored a play date with a new BFF, and all three (as always) were the beneficiaries of my tender kindness and love.

Yet, each one has cried in exhausted dismay today. Each one has hit, fought, talked back and ultimately, forced me into mean mom mode. One day in, and I've already made the "it's gonna be a loooooongggg summer" speech and also the "can't we allllll just get along?" speech, and though it's obvious that all four of us are over my podium-taking, take it I do. LISTEN UP Short Drunk People: I hold your fun in the palm of my hand (where my car keys are). Don't test me.

Also: it's hot. Sweaty 90s hot. I attempted to garden and decided that I need several trees and a couple misplaced bushes removed and more importantly, a professional landscaper. I give up. My dig it and wing it mode of gardening is simply not paying off, so... I paid Ro and the GFYO ten dollars (each!) to a weed a 4x6 spot. I was THAT desperate. (They stopped fighting for the twenty to thirty minutes it took them, so it was sort of a win win. Little do they know, I do not have two tens in my wallet, or even two ones...)

No one has remembered to close the screen door. The GFYO has been naked or close to it much of the day. The puppy post-his first serious haircut looks like a big-headed sheared mutant lamb: I love him the way you love an infant with pimples. Tomorrow, the girls start sailing and Bridget is being a freaking-out about it/too-cool-for-it 10 year old: nervous and tween 'tude go hand in hand I know, but really? This is about the most awesome "no one over 21 allowed" yacht club/camp experience that has ever been invented. I mean, I'm not even allowed in the club house!

Why summer? Why do you mock me?

There was one really great part of the day. I watched the USA World Cup game in uninterrupted although anxious joy. I settled in with a homemade ice coffee and my American flag painted face and cranked open the windows to let in whatever breeze was around. But now that I reflect on it -- uh oh. I am starting to wonder what it might have sounded like outside my house ---the "oohs" and "oh god"s and "go go go"s and finally the "YES!" I screamed from my kitchen when Landon finally scored...

Crap: I am sure my neighbors think I am conducting some torrid affair with my non-existent landscaper.

So yeah: summer is cancelled.

Solstice Slobbery Sweat Redemption

Today, pagans dance around Stonehenge, but tomorrow, at 3:00pm EST, summer officially begins in the House of Picket. At 3:00, the Short Drunk People will be in full on schools-out-for-summer mode which basically means that shoes will be ditched for the season and dirt and sand will become the new haute couture.

I should have spent the day stocking up on popsicles for the neighbor kids, but alas, I am without wheels. In the last few days, the Kid's fancy phone and his less than fancy car done broke. Good timing Karma! It's not like anyone's stressed out about paying for a couple weeks of over-priced camp or say, food. So wheel-less (and grocery-less) (and coffee-less), I did the next best thing: I organized everyones' rooms. In crazy upstairs heat.

Too-small hoodies and thermal shirts went in the give-away pile; t-shirts and shorts got neatly tucked into drawers. I found the stash of clothes from last summer (the one I usually forget where I have stored) and I weeded through that pile, amazed at two things: how much all three have grown and how ridiculous it was for me to hang on to those chocolate ice cream stained bermudas. I went through the book shelves and through the buckets and bins loaded there with a year's worth of collected treasures -- mini bubble bottles, lava rocks, half-busted pencils, faded stickers, Easter candy. (If anyone asks, I have no idea where any of that stuff is...)

I am glad it's done, but let me confess. I did not do it to prepare for the onslaught of summer, because frankly, finding school notebooks and soccer socks seems way more chaotic then the lushness of a July day with nothing to do. I did it because my (twice-monthly) cleaning lady told me to.

Let me explain: the Florida girloliday ran smack into end of the year hyperactivity including the luncheons and tournaments and two hour tryouts and field trips and Small Town ballot questions and in the process, there was some -- how shall I say? -- lax domestic skills on my part. And that one Tuesday when the cleaning lady was coming? Um, I forgot. And if I'd remembered? It wouldn't have mattered. The bomb had exploded and there was shrapnel everywhere. Including the breakfast dishes, hardened in syrupy crust, left out on the counter. And at least one toilet left unflushed, which the Short Drunks are quite famous for.

Anyhoo, so I spent today, the Solstice, not in meditation or even communing with nature weeding, but in a rush of "i'm gonna show her" cleaning, because dammit, I can not handle another note like this one:

Also, I hid all the pens and all the paper, including the paper napkins, just to hedge my bets.

Does Posting Every Day Make You Cooler Than Me?

Or smarter? Or better?

Blogher says yes. I say, hells no.

Life actually happens. It steps up and in the way of all our best intentions.

I write because it feels good to write; I write because I like to; I write because I know I speak for so many who do not write. I write in the sneaky hours I find. I have less sneaky hours lately.

I know that I am not in my proverbial wheel-house as well as I should be. I am so upturned with small town politics, I see only ugly and I run from it --

Hang tight.

Wait for it.

There is beauty in me.

I Went To Florida and All I Got Was the Secret of the Universe

The gauntlet has been thrown by Carolyn and even weighed in on by X. So I guess I gotta write something down...

But about what?

About what it's like to leave your life behind for five days of sun and palm trees with 8 other women? About what it's like to sit beach side with manatees and sting rays at your heels (who probably want to eat you)? About the sound of boozy golf cart races at sundown or synchronized swimming after midnight or the gulping slurp of watermelon when the day dares to show up? It's been told before so would any of these details make my story more real or more meaningful?

Doubt it.

But here's what I can add: there is a reason that Mother Nature is female, that ships are referred to as "she," and that the ancient Greeks and Pagans worshipped everything womanly. With all due respect to my bros, I have been to the top of the mountain (of empty light beer cans) and I have seen why women are the secret muscle of the world.

Do you know what it's like to move 9 women to one place for a very long weekend when there are hard-working husbands and 20+ children and 30+ sporting events and 20+ professional obligations and countless other details to deal with? And then throw in planes, cabs and boats, plus the pre-acquisition of all food and refreshments to the mix? I'll tell you what's it like: it's mind-boggingly EASY.

Division of labor? Check.

Negotiation of supplies? Check.

Operational maneuvers? Check.

Accounting? Check.

Entertainment and Educational Material (ie: US, People, Star)? Check.

Care-taking? Check.

Housekeeping? Check.

Fun and camaraderie? You shitting me? We were born with it.

For five short days, nine women can not only strand themselves on an island in the Gulf, but they can beat back even the threat of oil, can unplug toilets with pool water, can rescue widowed herons and errant turtles, and can pretty much crush the anti-depressant industry and the whole "women hate women" myth with the simple act art of non-stop brilliant laughter. And it wasn't (just) the wine or the beer or the cake or the shrimp or the sun that made it happen. It was because of that luscious chromosome that makes the hips wide and the boobs bloom and the heart and brain react and act so completely and beautifully GIRL.

There were no leaders and no followers. There was no one undone by having to do too much or too little, by having said too much or not enough, by tummy trouble or chubby thighs. There might have been a lot of inappropriate peeing, but there was never anything close to a pissing match. You lug my beach chair, I'll lug yours. Simple, easy, egalitarian, feminine.

A bunch of middle-aged women all alone on an island reminds me why the Lord of the Flies continues to resonate: boys all alone on an island? Yikes. I don't think there's a decent female version out there, but I know for sure that when it is written, it will look and sound and end much better than the original and the conch will be replaced with a funny looking coconut (fully made-up with markers) and there ain't gonna be any "lord," allegorical or otherwise.

Proof? This is what goddesses of the (bar)flies Florida skies looks like

and it's a beautiful freaking thing.