The dog days of summer

Have I mentioned it’s hot here?

Apparently the answer is yes because one of you posted this cartoon on my Facebook page and all I can say is YES.

This is the stretch of summer that gets really depressing because the heat has really set in and we know it’s not going to get any cooler until sometime around the end of September when a cool front arrives and temps plummet into the mid-80’s.

We had a fairly uneventful weekend around here. P was fishing in a tournament with some friends. Their team won second place and missed first by 1/4 pound, but the good news is they still get a very tasteful plaque with 3D renderings of a trout, redfish and flounder so thank goodness for that. Sadly (please note the sarcasm) Caroline has already asked that he hang the plaque in her playroom and I just want my child to be happy.

Meanwhile, Caroline and I had a girls’ weekend at home and watched some movies, ate some junk food and stayed up way too late, but that’s the beauty of summer. Then P got home late Saturday night and I spoke at our Community Worship Service on Sunday morning (I’m speaking again this coming Sunday) and we all took a Sunday afternoon nap. That’s what this heat does to you.

“What should we do today?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe stay in the air-conditioning and sleep?”

“Sold.”

I deemed yesterday as our official errand running today much to Caroline’s joy and delight. (Please note more sarcasm.) Our first stop was at Target to shop for school supplies. This is always one of my most dreaded tasks, but I’ve learned I will hate it infinitely more if I wait until the last minute when everything is picked over and it’s even harder to find a six pack of glue sticks with a 1 1/3″ glue diameter and scissors with a blunt tip buffed by the wings of fairies.

The good news is not many people are shopping for school supplies on a Monday in July so we made our way through Target with no one fighting in the aisles for the last eight pack of colored pencils. Caroline kept telling me she needed “these really nice mechanical pencils” or “these special pens with all the colors” and I’d ask, “Didn’t we buy those last year? What happened to them?”

And the answer was always, “I lost them.”

Well. That totally makes me want to spend that money again.

But we survived the experience – event the sticker shock at the cash register – and now have two bags full of Kleenex, pens, notebooks, composition books, mechanical pencils and hand sanitizer ready to go in a few weeks. Ultimately, this is great because it means I don’t have to accomplish one other thing this summer to feel like I’ve been productive. My work here is done.

Cooking? Cleaning? No thank you. I’ve bought our school supplies.

After Target we ran to TJ Maxx because I can’t even tell you about our towel situation in the master bath. I’m not sure what happened to our towels over the last few months but they have had some sort of breakdown. All of a sudden they are – for lack of a better term – raggedy. I knew they were at the point of needing to be replaced when I was doing laundry last week and mistook several of our good towels for the old towels I keep on a shelf in our laundry room that I use to clean various things or dry the dogs off after a bath.

And I decided over the weekend that life is too short to not have nice towels. I’m a grown up and I have earned the luxury of drying off with a towel that doesn’t have holes in it. This is America, land of the free, home of the brave. A place where you can buy new towels on virtually every corner.

So we bought new towels. They are made in Turkey and you know the Turkish are known for both their cotton weave and their delight.

After that we ran by Office Max to search for the elusive and magical binder that’s full of pockets and zipper bags and comes complete with a magical, organizational fairy that Caroline has dreamed up in her mind and is currently not available anywhere in town. Or on Earth.

And then we finished our day of errand fun at HEB buying things like milk and eggs and Sour Patch Kids.

Once we made it home and unpacked all the contents of our day’s excursion, I loaded up Piper and Mabel and took them to the dog park. This has become an essential part of my day. And because of that, the dogs lose their mind anytime I walk out of the back door with my keys in my hand.

It’s their happy place. And a place where I get a few minutes of alone time every day because nobody in my house wants to go with me to the dog park, which makes it my happy place.

Piper has discovered the joy of drinking straight from the faucet. She feels that being dainty is highly overrated.

Dog days of summer from Big Mama on Vimeo.

Meanwhile, Mabel is trying to get onboard but she just isn’t sure it’s as sanitary as drinking straight from the muddy pit.

You know she wrote a haiku about it.

Why choose fresh water?
Flows from the devil’s spigot
Sister plays with fire