What Summer Brings

We like the things that summer brings.

It brings the sun.

It brings the heat.

It brings the things

we like to eat.

Summer brings so many things!

-- from  Summer, by Alice Low

Growing up in the city, we were very lucky to be able to escape to our beach house in the summer.  Instead of shimmering hot pavement and fetid gutters, our summer memories are a page straight out of the Americana handbook: sand, surf, sprinklers, spud, wiffle ball, bike rides, the ice cream man, and chasing rabbits.  But beyond the generic experiences, my siblings and I also share memories of summer particular solely to us—the memory of the toys and books in the beach house.  What was in the house in 1975 stayed in the house, with few (if any) changes.  Because we weren’t inside much it just didn’t matter.  So every summer we contentedly played with the same potholder loom (always short five or six bands), drew with the same broken crayons stored in the Raggedy Ann bag, pored over the same Archie comics (and, better still, the Betty and Veronica digests) and reread the same children’s books (which we did, in fairness to us and to our mom, supplement with many age appropriate books from the local library).

Summer, quoted above, was (and still is) one of my favorites.  It is a happy catalog of the joys of summer-- as lived by a boy, a girl and their pup-- told in rhyme and accompanied by vibrant illustrations.

As we hurtle through the season—when school ends June 26ththe fourth of July comes waaaay too soon—I’m inspired to add a few stanzas.  (Apologies to Ms. Low.)

Summer brings so many things!

It brings us camp.

On that we’re keen.

It brings us battles

About sunscreen.

Some summer days  

we have swim meets.

Why are there

So many heats?

We like to have friends

come to our pool,
We play Kan Jam

It’s pretty cool.

We grill out, hang,

We think we’re fine.

Pump is broken!

Hello, Shoreline?

Summer brings so many things!

We take the Jeep

With the top down

Wind in our hair

We scream through town.

Geocaching

With our mother

Why does she still

Watch Big Brother?

We love these days.

The mood is cool

'Til Target starts

With "Back to School."

HAPPY SUMMER

And She Told Two Friends....

The other night we ate at a very trendy South Beach restaurant.  A restaurant where boldface names are frequently spotted by the tabloids.  Unfortunately, we were there for a work function and were shuttled to the restaurant, along with 25 or so of my husband's colleagues and their spouses, in a massive tour bus.

Like a mortified teenager, I contemplated asking the driver to drop us off a block away from the restaurant.  Unfortunately, by the time that idea occurred to me we had already stopped in front.

Dignity dented, I had no qualms about securing a good spot inside-- "good spot" being wholly defined by who I would have to talk to all night.  It's my best-developed survival skill.  I surrounded myself with people I like, no whammies.

Before the waiter could even take our drink orders, one of my friends leaned in and asked if I was reading "that book."  What book?  "The mommy porn," she said.

She explained that she had been on vacation a few weeks earlier with a couple of other families and that the other women, close friends of hers, had been so engrossed in their Kindles that they would barely speak to her at the pool.  When she called them on their rudeness they blamed it on the book, Fifty Shades of Grey.

Intrigued, my friend had downloaded it and then found herself up all night reading.  She was asking me about it because there had been a story about the book-- about the secret cult-like phenomenon of the book-- on the Today show.  I had never heard of it.

I can't stand feeling like I'm out of the pop culture loop. Back at the hotel I went straight to ibooks, pausing for only a brief moment to contemplate what impact downloading something categorized as "erotica" might have on Big Brother's cookie profile of me.

Fifty Shades evidently started as Twilight fanfiction.  It is a thinly-veiled retelling of that book's ordinary girl tames the unattainable god-like man story, with an emotionally unavailable/sexually deviant billionaire taking the place of the vampire. Unlike Twighlight, this book does not have an abstinence agenda.  Quite the opposite.

But there's got to be a ton of downloadable erotica out there (I refuse to search ibooks to confirm that!)  Why is this book getting all the attention?  The media coverage seems to suggest it's the nature of the relationship, which dabbles in S&M. 

That could be it.  I don't know.  My old roommate used to ask me to edit her Smallville fanfiction for her.  She wrote slash stories about Clark Kent and Lex Luthor, so let's just say that it takes a lot to shock me.  It's all pretty repetitive and I wind up feeling embarrassed for the writer and myself.  And yet...

I emailed my friend this morning to tell her that I think I must be a masochist: I'm now reading part two of this wretchedly written trilogy because I have to know what happens in the actual story.  It's truly painful.

Miss-lead and Miss-direct

Last year I read The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin's account of her year-long attempt to be-- you guessed it-- happier. The cover art caught my eye when I walked into the library: a row of brownstones (Brooklyn maybe?) under a bright blue sky. I remember reading the jacket and deciding to check out the book to see what this "mom like me" had to say.

A lot of what Rubin came up with was pretty obvious: don't let yourself get cold, hungry, or tired and you'll be happier! One of the chapters was about ridding her apartment of clutter. I felt for Rubin. At the time, I happened to be knee-deep in weeding through all of our clothes, books, and toys and could only imagine how overwhelming the sheer volume of stuff would be in a NYC apartment. I remember how pleased Rubin was to be able to leave one shelf completely clear, how it represented control and calm and possibility. We only ever had one kid in our two-bedroom apartment when we lived in the city and the closets were packed to capacity. I was impressed.

The more I read, though, the more skeptical (and irritated) I became. How was Rubin, with her two young kids, 1) researching and writing historical works; 2) writing and blogging about her happiness project; 3) helping her friends clean out their closets; 4) attending book clubs about YA fiction; 5) meeting people for umpteen lunches and dinners out; and on and on. Where were her kids? How come she never mentioned rushing back for the sitter? How did the kids factor so little in her happiness or daily life? I read the dedication and acknowledgements looking for a shout-out to a nanny. Nothing.

So I hit google. Turns out Ms. Rubin is married to some serious money and lives in a triplex on Park Avenue. The clean shelf lost it's punch right there. I found no mention anywhere by Ms. Rubin of the huge role reliable childcare played in her (kind of ridiculous, considering the facts) pursuit of happiness. I felt seriously duped.

Cut to this year.

Shame on me, because I've been fooled again. I've been a casual fan of Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman) for a couple of years. I read the cooking part of her blog and was always impressed that this "mom like me" could help run a ranch in Oklahoma while simultaneously raising and homeschooling her four kids and updating her website with her recipes, photos, essays and more. I marveled at her energy.

Turns out, Drummond, too, is married to some serious money. Her quaint ranch is the equivalent of at least a triplex on Park Avenue. And evidently she has a teacher for her kids. And a staff for her website.

I certainly don't begrudge these women their money or their nannies. I do, however, resent their lack of candor. It's kind of like the airbrushing out of fat and wrinkles in magazine spreads. Omitting pertinent facts is as bad as lying about them. And twice as aggravating.

The Girl with the Dragon Travel Mug (Working Title)

There were a bunch of stories in the news this week about product placement and its role in advertising.

Evidently, Days of Our Lives has progressed from merely showing a sponsor's product on camera to working subtle-as-a-sledgehammer advertisements for Cheerios and Chex Mix (among others) into its scripts.

I think product placement can be mildly distracting-- it chips at the fourth wall but doesn't quite break it-- but I get the need for it. With people fast-forwarding through commercials and/or watching content on the internet, advertisers have to find new ways to reach consumers.

I'm kind of wondering if the next step in product placement is books. If we can credit Mark Burnett as the pioneer of prodcut placement on TV (and I think we must: remember that outhouse reward on Survivor that they dubbed the Casa de Charmin?), I think someday we will look back and point to Stieg Larsson as the Mark Burnett of literature.

What's the product that's being pushed? Coffee. The Swedes in Larsson's books drink an inordinate amount of coffee. They drink coffee with and between each meal. They drink coffee when they need to think. They drink coffee when they are tired of thinking. They drink coffee before they collapse into bed. If the plot brings two characters together, they invariably have some coffee. Cups and cups of the stuff (with an occasional espresso or latte thrown in for good measure). Coffee is practically a character in the books.

It's like Larsson made a bet that he could use the word coffee 5,000 times in each manuscript. Or, maybe, just maybe, he got paid by the "coffee."

Could "Stieg Larsson" be Swedish for Juan Valdez?

Author! Author!

I love my house.
I have two cats.
I have a couch under my bed.

And that's all there is. Intriguing, no? The brief work of a newly-published Kindergartener.

In our elementary school we run a Publishing Center-- the kids come in with stories that they have written in class, we (parent volunteers) go over the stories with them, and, ultimately, the story is typed up and bound into a very low-tech, often hideous, wallpaper-sample-covered cardboard book.

I really enjoy sitting down with the kids and going through their stories and illustrations with them. Some stories are completely random. Some are hilarious. Some just talk about which Wii games they like to play. And some stories provide a vivid peek into a child's life at home (let's just say that I don't have to worry that I'm the mom with the shortest temper).

Also a treat is the "About the Author" section. Kid authors are about all kinds of stuff. Exactly how old they are and what sports they play = very important. As are: favorite foods, favorite colors and pets (or the unfulfilled desire to have pets).

Today I read an "About the Author" that included this juicy gem: "He once got a dragon tattoo that lasted for ten days." How awesome is that? It kind of reminds me of when Dudley Pippin recites his kid resume to Naomi on Free to Be... You and Me: "and a ball of tin foil five inches across..."

If I ever write a book, I'm going to remember the Publishing Center when I craft my About the Author. Let's see... I like blue. And dogs. And cheese. And I hate eggplant. Huh. I may need to get some more pets to flesh it out.