Published Wednesday, August 25, 2010 9:59 AM
Updated Wednesday, August 25, 2010 10:00 AM
It’s vacation time, and when it comes to my time off, I’m very old school. Simply stated, I’m not available. To anyone. For any reason. Period.
My cell phone is very likely squatting, mute and disgruntled, in the junk drawer of the kitchen. My computer is unplugged and sitting quietly in its canvas bag awaiting my return. The home phone, which I never answer anyway, probably won’t notice a difference in the state of affairs. And any mail that I get that does not start off with the phrase, “pay to the order of …” and ends with several higher end digits all sitting to the left of the decimal point, will not get so much as a glance until sometime next week.
That’s what time off is about. You make a commitment to relax, forget, and understand that whatever horrors of the world with which you are contending will be there when you get back.
It has been a long, hot, arduous, steamy, stifling, overwhelming summer. I remember back in March wondering when the arctic temperatures would be gone and swearing I would never complain about hot weather again. You don’t have to shovel heat, I kept telling myself.
Well, as George Bush the Elder should have said back in ’88 or so, “Read my lips; I was lying.”
I’ve hated the heat, the humidity, and the fact that my air conditioning bill and my laundry detergent use quadrupled between June and yesterday. I’ve actually become embittered – as opposed to amazed – that we have managed to set a new record for number of consecutive severe heat advisories issued in a single summer.
Our dogs, always smarter than the humans they own, refuse to go outside after about 9 a.m. I hope to come back as one of them in my next life.
Still, I have great reason to celebrate beyond the sheer exhilaration of not thinking about anything beyond what wine goes best with grilled brook trout: It’s also my birthday and my third anniversary, all rolled into one. And I am finding that each one gets better and better.
Ever the late bloomer, I got married on my 43rd birthday, the smartest move I ever made.
A year later, we celebrated our first anniversary moving mountains of packing boxes and furniture into storage -- not the smartest move I ever made.
The next year, we celebrated by doing important renovations and upgrades to our house – because nothing says, “Happy anniversary, baby,” like a subcontractor crew in the kitchen for 12 hours at a time. It was a better way to spend that special week, but definitely not all that.
This year, well, let’s just say we are not moving, cleaning, or having any construction work done during our vacation. We are, after three years of marriage, finally getting to spend this anniversary week completely to ourselves, unencumbered by anything except our own sybaritic pursuits.
Good move. Happy birthday to me, indeed.