Dog Days of Summer

Generally, the end of August is referred to as being the "dog days of summer." I think this is because the end of August is seen as the last hurrah of summer, the time that you have to squeeze in all of your extra fun before it's too late.

My dog days of summer are occurring now. Why? Well, school starts the first week of August, and may I say that it is really strange to start school so early. During grade school, I never started school before the last week in August; often, I didn't start until after Labor Day. High school was pretty similar. The college I went to didn't start classes til the third week of September.

This past week, we had a friend from Jersey visit us. We've known her for quite a while; I met her in 1996 in seventh grade algebra and my husband met her in 1998 in 9th grade German. She's the kind of friend who actually knew you when you had a retainer and went through your poser/grunger/punk rock/backstreet boys/other phase. The kind of friend who has not only met your parents but has possibly done work for your parents. The kind of friend who has way too much dirt on you for you to ever consider running for public office. The kind of friend who has cheated off of your math homework, but you've returned the favor. It was a fun week. We didn't do a whole lot, but we enjoyed ourselves nevertheless. She was entertained by our new home (it's like "Gilmore Girls" sometimes, I swear) and we were regaled by her tales of being a nanny. Luckily, she now works for a lovely family, but she went through some real lemons a few years ago. Some families, it seems, don't want a nanny so much as they want a slave.

There was a foray into NH to see The Dark Knight, which was excellent. I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. This has been happening a lot lately. Husband wants to go see a movie based upon a comic he read in his youth and I go along, feeling pretty much neutral. Then, I see the movie and really like it. This means that it's probably good that I didn't read comic books as a kid; I clearly would have gotten even less done at school. I would have been the kid that stared out of the window all of the time as opposed to only about half of the time.