I am in complete denial about the fact that summer is winding down. School starts again in just 18 days, and I have a lot of work to do before that happens. I’ve got a new course I’m working on for the fall semester and lots to prepare. But, for now, I am comfortably dwelling in the last dwindling days of summer and I am hanging on with my whole heart.
I’m enjoying hot afternoons on the patio, taking care of my plants and drinking a cold beer from a can (with a foam coozy thing, just because I am a high-class lady). I have been taking long walks around the neighborhood, letting myself get as sweaty as possible. I’ve been making giant pots of coffee for chilling and icing, and huge salads with my home-grown herbs.
Today I went on a short run (PT prescribed!) and then came home and cleaned up my house almost from top to bottom. I still need to dust certain shelves and clean the patio doors, but it’s basically all ship-shape right now. Tell me, is there anything more satisfying than sitting around and enjoying your freshly cleaned home, watching your puppy nap in the sunbeams filtering through the windows? I submit to you that there is not.
![[211/366] Sunbeams](https://i0.wp.com/farm9.staticflickr.com/8147/7672483360_4850ba9b29_z.jpg)
I’ve been continuing to read fun things, currently Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness (the sequel to A Discovery of Witches, which I loved). I’m not that far into the book yet and it’s starting off slowly, but I trust that like the first book in the series, it will get more gripping as it goes on. I’m also marathon-watching a couple of TV shows: catching up with season four of True Blood from last year, and just starting Game of Thrones with season one. Basically, I am fully immersed in weird, nerdy, supernatural fantasy shit. Witches, vampires, and whatever the hell Game of Thrones is — I don’t know, but it’s good.
Side note: So I’m three episodes into Game of Thrones, and I already hate this insufferable little blonde teenaged boy with the Caesar cut. Joffrey. What kind of smug, twattish name is “Joffrey,” anyway? Not only is he terrible, but what is with the haircut? I was complaining about this on twitter last night and I thought I’d bring it up here, too. His hair, in addition to just being unflattering on his big-eared head, doesn’t fit in at all. Most all the other characters have longer, wavier, more natural looking hair styles, but this kid has a purposeful, precision haircut with highlights and what looks to be gel. GEL. IN HIS HAIR. HAIR GEL. I do not get it at all. Where is he getting it done? Is there a Supercuts somewhere in the Seven Kingdoms? Regardless, I like the show, so I’m sure I’ll keep watching and this important question will eventually be resolved.
Raveling Out 
1. Joffery is the WORST
2. Ahhhh, you sound relaxed. It makes me happy 🙂
1. HE IS. Ugh.
2. I AM! I’ve got a happy little secret up my sleeve, too.
Of all the blogs, this blog has the most intense sense of seasonality everrrr. Any given post, it’ll be Summer, or almost Summer, or the end of Summer, or Winter, or Spring, or there’ll be dogwood blossom or pumpkin chai lattes. (I love this, by the way. It’s part of your being an animal in the world, your state of mind constituted – at least in part – by the world you’re in. (Although I get that a lot of what’s important about Summer for you is that it’s holidays, not just your part of the earth is angling a little less slantily towards the Sun.))
Well, summer is the source of both great stress (not getting paid/not getting paid much) and great relaxation (not working/not working much). You spend the whole year saving money for summer and then the whole summer trying not to spend the money you saved too quickly. I think I’d be less fixated on it if we could divide our salaries into 12 months instead of 9. And I’m equally obsessed with Christmas break — three weeks off and I DO still get paid! Heh.
I do think about seasons all the time, though: Which is my favorite? (Fall or winter). Where, of all the places I’ve lived, has the best version of each season? (Winter: Minnesota, Spring: Alabama, Summer: Oregon, Fall: East Tennessee).
I also somehow blame the academic calendar for this. I can tell you when in my life something happened based on the season or semester, but ask me the calendar year and I may not even know. Hmm.