Ammi Midstokke: Getting the most out of your summer
The most determinate measures of a successful summer are reaching the end in a state of physical exhaustion and social fatigue, and with enough sun damage to warrant an extra trip to the dermatologist. To this end, we must never say no to anything, be it picnic, playdate or parade.
Your bestie can only squeeze a run in at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday? No problem. Ignore the fact that you were at an outdoor concert until midnight the previous evening after volunteering at a community event after riding your bike everywhere because you can and watering the garden – twice – and that your in-laws and their in-laws and your cousin’s 14 kids are camping in your yard, requiring you to produce macaroni salad in 5-gallon buckets before lunch.
Rent the double-decker pontoon boat with the water slide, but bring the paddle boards and the floating sofa and the water Frisbee because we might get bored were we to just float. Sign up for the kayaking trip and the family reunion trip, because not everyone could make it to your back yard campout where you determined that one port-a-potty is not sufficient for the amount of hot dogs consumed by the Midwestern branch of your family tree.
Do not forget to go to all the farmer’s markets or antique sales, and especially be sure to check out the garage sales in the good neighborhoods, but early because that’s when you can find the best stuff you don’t need. After 9 a.m., it’s just regular stuff you don’t need.
This will serve as a reminder of some of the summer projects you’ve been saving supplies for the past 20 years, if only you had a place to keep the things. For once, you and your spouse will agree on something without debate: More storage space is necessary and those minibarns on the highway are having a sale.
It’s not your fault that the camper place is next door and you get sidetracked checking out the new tear-drops only to pull one of those home and forget the minibarn altogether. Think of all the new summer adventures you can have! You convince your spouse the camper can double as storage 51 weeks of the year without mentioning the lumber you’ve scored at the flea market (along with a scratched “White Album” you’re sure will someday pay for both) will not actually fit in a shoebox on wheels named after a national park.
Then you invite any distant family and their teenagers who have not yet contributed to the season’s consistent washing of towels and dispensing of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to come visit because they can stay in the new camper.
The Honey Pot outhouse has been returned, so it’s fine if they use your bathroom and turn the left wing of the house into a steaming high school locker room. Your house will smell like Axe body spray or one of those trendy Old Spice scents (Sexy Pirate or Stud Hunter) until you repaint.
By mid-July, you’re as tanned as leather and people are saying things like, “Oh my, you look like you’ve had an active summer,” which is only because you’ve replaced actual food with those high-octane seltzers (the bulk ones you found at Costco, possibly when the in-laws were in town) and grown tired of smelling like a toddler because you ran out of grown-up sunscreen weeks ago.
Just as you think things might slow down, you realize nearly every weekend of summer is already planned and you haven’t gone camping yet, so you block out that last three days of summer that are not yet accounted for, plus the five days it takes to shop and pack for said trip and the four days it takes to recover upon you return.
You’ll know the season is wearing thin when everyone shows up to the neighborhood potluck with a bag of chips, a tub of salsa with the expiration date rubbed off, and the Kirkland spiked seltzer flavors no one likes.
Right about then, the town cries, “Second wind!” and you realize you haven’t made it to any of the full moon bike rides or full moon kayaks or full moon hikes and you spend what money you have left on an early evening ice-coffee habit to facilitate participation in after-dark shenanigans. And don’t forget the summer concert series, the wine pairings, the berry pickings, and least of all, your summer reading list.
Just as you’re beginning to think your summer has been satisfactorily packed, some jerk tells you how many days are left until Christmas – 161 – and you remember crying into your dinner in the dark at 3:50 p.m. in January while pining for sun and staying up past 8 p.m. So, you stretch your summer plans into late September and even October with backpacking trips all in the hope that you’ll be so tired by winter, hibernation is the only option.
It’s mid-July and you may already feel the complex grief that is simultaneously mourning the days getting shorter while fantasizing about sweater weather. You both want it to never end and also hope that fire season will be skipped altogether and we’ll still have homes to make soup in come autumn.
And if you find yourself occasionally daydreaming about steaming pots of stew and cozy socks and weekends without itineraries, you’re probably doing summer just right.
Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com