And So It Was...

It seems to just now be heating up in earnest in my part of California...99 degrees today, probably a few degrees hotter by the weekend. Ah, but it's a dry heat. And yet, here is my farewell to summer.

I have a lot to say. SO MUCH to say about what's been going on in my head the last couple of weeks or so. Tectonic shifts are in store, synchronicity and it's markers are popping up like crabgrass all around me. It feels exciting, and scary, but at least it feels like something, and that's a lot.

But I would feel amiss if I didn't first say an official good-bye to the summer of '09. Yes, summer still has about a month of livin' to do, but with school back in session and Oriental Trading sending me Halloween party catalogs in the mail, it's hard not to feel like true summer is over. It was an okay summer -- camping and our wonderful trip to Big Sur, water parks and pool play and lots of lazy mornings, lounging in our pj's until noon.

Still. Still, I wanted more from this summer, not the least of which was a trip to one of our Southern California beaches. The beaches of north San Diego county are only about an hour away, and yet we never once made it to the beach. I feel horrible about this, and I know it's not too late to remedy it, but aaargh. We all have our ambitions, our mental images of what something should be, and summer doesn't feel complete yet, for me. I had also hoped for more board games, more impromptu trips for cheap ice cream cones from the Rite Aid counter. It was hard for me to be spontaneous, this summer.

The picture above was taken at Pfieffer Beach in Big Sur (just like my sandy toes post). Those two screamed at the water and the waves as though they were landlocked Midwestern children who had never seen the ocean. Nor-Cal beaches are not "true" Beach Boys/surfin'/Coppertone kinds of beaches, though. The coast is rocky, the water is colder, the waves choppier. We need a trip to the shore, before this summer is truly through.