As I write this post the last hours of Official Summer are whizzing past. The alarm clock has already been dusted off and inspected for operability and now we’re just killing time on our way to its first rude squawk since school let out in June.

I always get pretty depressed about the end of my summer. Not so much the weather part of it. That is guaranteed to hang on for another three months in these parts. I’m a little bummed about the end of Official Summer during which there is no school, no PTA and therefore no obligation to set down the tequila or put on clothes. I’m not ashamed to admit it: summers around here are kinda sorta clothing optional. 

Not strictly speaking of course - we don’t run completely naked through the hallways of Matulich Manor - it’s just that short of a presidential visit, I rarely find occasion to dress myself or my offspring up in anything more formal than swimsuits. I even managed to start my own salsa company last July wearing nothing more complex than a stringy tie-dyed number.

Pajamas. Bikini. Pajamas. Bikini. Pajamas. Bikini. Sunrise. Sunset.

Therefore I figured that I’d mark the final morning of Official Summer by jumping into the ocean for a swim over and through the massive kelp forests of Monterey Bay. 

I even wore a bikini for the occasion because I’m sentimental like that.

And I wore a wetsuit over the bikini because dude, that water’s freezing.  

If a better way to spend time has ever been devised I have yet to discover it. There is nothing more enjoyable than treading water offshore in the lift and roll of swells, pulling oneself through kelp beds in a half swim half crawl and watching the tourists watch the sea from the sea. Where else but a kelp bed can you lay around and watch the harbor seals pop their cat-like heads up close enough to cop a whisker feel?

And when it was over I was kinda bummed that this really, truly was IT. The End. Adios. Over. Gone. The period at the end of a well-loved quote.

I tried to be ok with it. And I was for a little bit, until I found myself sitting at the top of the stairs at my in-laws house in Santa Cruz where I could still smell the saltwater and seaweed coming off my sand-covered flip flops.

And that’s when I realized that I need to sell a ton of salsa or begin a life of high-paying white collar crime so I can just hang out at the beach year round.

You know, there are times when I want to come type away on this blog about some of the stupid shit I do just because, well, it seems like it would make it less dumb if I were to publish a post and then sit back and imagine that somewhere out there I have several readers who are sitting in front of their monitors, smacking their foreheads and saying out loud, “Dude. I’ve totally done that too.”

As if doing something stupid makes it less so when it is diluted and spread out among a greater sampling of humans. Like buying a Humvee. Or wearing crocs.

Anyway, here is a list of the stupid things I’ve done in the past week that no person in their right mind would ever fess up to:

- backed over something, stopped, rolled down my window and put my head outside - and then without confirming that what I had backed over was not, in fact, a dog or small child or some other legally recognized entity whose annhialation would result in me being sued - pulled forward, and then backed over it again.

- fed my kids several metric tons worth of chocolate, marshmallow and soda before allowing them to ride home inside the car instead of putting them in front and yelling Mush!

- Forgot to wear BodyGlide to the gym so that my running skirt wouldn’t ride up (at least the guy on the treadmill behind me didn’t seem to mind)

- answered the door for a Jehovah’s Witness

- locked my keys in the car

- locked my keys in the car with the kids (who were Not At All Helpful in unlocking the doors)

- locked my keys in the car and gained entry by crawling through the rear window when there was a perfectly good spare clicky-thing just ten feet away

- inadvertently introduced flax seed to my daughter’s diet

- plotted a ten mile run for Sunday, answered the phone, became sidetracked during phone conversation, finished plotting run without really looking, fled house, returned twelve-point-two miles later wondering why I felt so beat up.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this. What kind of goofy stuff have you done this week?

Yes, I am as surprised as you, but it so happens that I have managed to sell a few photos. My customers were not so much interested in purchasing them for the kind of cash that would allow me to retire - or super size my meal at a McDonalds for that matter - nor were they interested in purchasing the rights to the photos which would have fetched a far prettier penny, but I’ve now actually sold photos and that makes me incredibly surprised as I am a complete novice-without-formal-training-and really not-such-a-great amateur photographer.

Still I would be lying if I said that I was not a little overwhelmed and filled with gratitude that someone wanted my stuff! Mine! And they wanted it enough to give me the kind of cash that will cover roughly thirty seconds worth of broadband service. During off-peak hours of course.

Sold! To an environmental group in Southern California:

Moon jellies.

Sold! To another environmental group in Argentina:

Some kind of sea creatures whose name escapes me but are quite pretty nonetheless, no?

Given away! Because I’m retarded and didn’t know better! To a company that publishes tourist guides:

A photo of the marina at Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey Bay. (Honestly? This photo isn’t even all that great which just goes to show you that it’s really true: if Gustav Klimt can sell utter crap then so can you.)

Donated upon request! To the fine folks who work for the local government in Placer County who requested the right to use as part of a display:

North Fork of the American River at the bottom of the American River Canyon.

If this keeps up I may just have to take my earnings down to Trader Joe’s for a celebratory bottle of two-buck-Chuck. Yee haw!

Well, last night I was able to throw out the rest of the meds that I was prescribed when I tested positive for the tuberculosis. Meds that I’ve taken for six months. Meds that could not be combined with a variety of foodstuffs that - if typed in 10 point times new roman - would form a list that could wrap around the earth four and a half times.

Now that the six months are up I’m taking my newly chemically-cleansed liver out for a little recontamination session involving red wine, sashimi, beer and unprocessed cheese. I’ll probably be gone for a few days. Red wine and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Therefore I’m going to be lazy and do another photo post. I figure I have way too many photos piling up in the ol’ Flickr account lately and who better to put to sleep than the fine group of alcoholics who read my blog? Not that I believe for a second that all of you are alcoholics. I’m guessing that quite a few of you are potheads. I may even have a handful of closet painkiller addicts in here.

…but who am I to judge? I’m off to the nearest barstool where I plan on slurping margaritas until my liver is brought to its fleshy brown knees, so trust me when I say I’d be the last person to condemn the Mormon housewife up the street for popping a few vicodin in the morning to help her get through another day without abusing her seven offspring.

Anyway. Photos. Here.

I’m throwing you a bone Jay, since I know you are an enjoyer of the feminine curve. This bellydancer was dancing on the sidewalk in front of her studio as part of a larger community art festival held once a month in Sacramento.

A starfish adhered to the side of an aquatic column.

This one’s for you Neisel, I’ve never been able to go to an art show without thinking of you. This is a close-up of a gorgeous metal sculpture on display as part of Second Saturday.

At first I had wished that this photo had not been so horribly out of focus but after a while I came to like it better this way. A soupfin shark circles directly above my head while a bat ray and yellowfin tuna tool about closer to the water’s surface.

My local readers should recognize this vantage point immediately. It’s an east-facing view of the J Street Corridor taken from the north side of the street at Caesar Chavez Plaza.

Sunlight glints off a school of mackerel as they swim around and around and around and around and around and around. Hey, anyone else dizzy?

Detail of the hood joint on a Morris Minor parked as part of a larger display of vespas and unique automobiles at Second Saturday.

 A gaggle of stuffed snakes hang at a game booth on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

This one’s for you LL and DNR. This Harley was parked as part of a larger display illustrating how these bikes double as moving art.

Speaking of moving art, these fleshy little jellyfish are part of a display in Monterey in which the movement and color of the simple-minded invertebrates was highlighted.

A telephone box hangs next to a posted plea on the Golden Gate Bridge as part of an unmanned effort to waylay potential suicides. The text of the sign reads: Crisis Counseling - There is hope make the call - the consequences of jumping from this bridge are fatal and tragic.

Early morning in Pajaro, California.

A view during a luscious bike ride along the Pacific Coast Highway.

A banner commemorating one of my favorite authors.

That’s it, I’m out. There’s raw fish to be eaten and tequila to be swilled. See you folks on the other end of the coming weekend.

Last Saturday a couple of friends of mine - friends who prefer anonymity to the social flogging that would result if people discovered that they hung out with me - and I went to 2nd Saturday. For those outside of Northern California, 2nd Saturday is a gathering of local artists who converge on the streets of downtown Sac to celebrate yet another month of not having a real job.

So there we were; Maria, Lori and I (I only guaranteed anonymity until the second paragraph ladies), walking around minding our own business when I spotted a bicycular contraption that looked like it had been pieced together by Dr. Frankenstein himself. Never having been one to avoid something interesting even at the risk of communicable disease, I moved closer to investigate and discovered that the thing was basically a makeshift plywood chassis lashed together with bungee cords. In true homeless hippie fashion, it had been loaded up with an ice chest, easel, mismatched handlebars, bag of recyclables, mongrel dog, bucket seat from a Dodge minivan and - inexplicably - a car battery.

“You want I should take your picture?” The owner materialized out of the crowd. Dude had the hard scrabble look of someone who hadn’t seen the inside of a bathroom since the Ford administration.

Still, the guy seemed friendly enough as he stood there smiling, oblivious to the fact that I plan on voting for McCain. He held his hand out expectantly and I handed him my camera - my brand new Canon SLR that had been purchased with the blood of my children - without so much as a hitch of hesitation.

Had he been there, my husband would have immediately gone into cardiac arrest. But he wasn’t there and the homeless dude snapped a pic and returned my camera and all of us went on our merry way.

…yesterday at which Matt Mullenweg - the founder of WordPress - said:

“I love it here. How can you not love San Francisco? It’s, like, FREE AIR CONDITIONING!”

I’m sitting in one of those McDonald’s “playland” things. You know, those plate-glass enclosed boxes filled with plastic tunnels and rubberized mats into which you can release your feral offspring after force-feeding them more calories than the entire Donner Party combined?

So, figuring that it might help me in tuning out the non-stop din of blood oaths and other parents’ threats to inflict bodily harm upon their children I figured I’d bring my laptop.

This, of course, was a stupid idea. Never mind the fact that universally speaking, kids are pros at busting stuff. Especially my stuff and particularly when said stuff costs more than my first car.

Then again, I can handle the fact that every time I take my daughter to the bathroom I come back to find a zillion tiny fingerprints all over the screen. I can even get over the ick-factor of returning from refilling my soda to find that one of the parents pulled up his myspace page which  - so far as I can tell - is mostly populated with boudoir photos.

Side note: How is it that it’s been at least eighteen years since I was exposed to the wonders of donkey shows but somehow missed this creepy ”male boudoir” phenomenon?

What I cannot handle, the thing that is making me most crazy, the one behavior that may very well result in me being led out of this McDonald’s in handcuffs and charged with aggravated assault is the incessant whining of one of the kids on the playscape.

This kid started whining the moment he arrived and in the hour that we’ve all shared this space the brat has only let up long enough to cram several pounds of french fries into his ever-lovin’ mcnugget hole. And believe you me, when I say the kids whines I really mean he “wails at a decibel range commonly used to keep prisoners awake at Gitmo”. This tyke isn’t satisfied with a simple registration of his displeasure: he wants to inform the entire continent and outlying domestic territories of the injustices he’s being forced to tolerate at the hands of a mother who can’t seem to stop pouring soda down his gullet.

You may ask, what is the kids whining about?

Everything. If he falls he whines. If the a/c is too high he whines. When a little girl was using the slide he whined. When other kids look at him sideways, cross his path or fail to bow and scrape before addressing his Whininess the kid. Fucking. Whines.

The boys are now brandishing the toy guns that came in their happy meals. The girls are planting the seeds of rebellion. I now have a nervous tic. Whispered conspiracies are flowering in the ball pit and I suspect there will be an attempted fragging momentarily. Everyone, including the little terror’s mom, has developed the thousand yard stare.

…and I’m beginning to wonder: is it too late to force this woman to have an abortion?

…in a Starbucks this morning.

“You know, growing up in Minnesota I always thought I was liberal. And then I moved to Northern California.”

(sigh)

Yes. We do have more than our fair share of folks who give new meaning to the phrase “lunatic fringe” don’t we?

A couple of weeks ago, just before I seemingly abandoned my blog, my husband and I decided to take the kids on a family vacation. Since he and are alike in that we find the prospect of taking a two year old on a plane about as inviting as performing home dental surgery on one another, we decided to vacation close to home.

Also, the in-laws had taken their RV and skipped town, thus leaving their Santa Cruz County digs, fully-stocked liquor cabinet, porn collection and cache of guns lonely for company.

Kids? Meet Mr. Tequila and Mr. Glock. They’ll be your babysitters for the next two weeks.

Before our vacation I decided to try my hand at triathlons which means enduring the Pacific Ocean’s sub-Arctic conditions which means purchasing a wetsuit which means that somewhere between the words “Honey” and “I’m thinking about doing triathlons” my husband shelled out a few hundred bucks to cover his wife from neck to ankles in neoprene with nary a blowjob to show for it.

But he got even. And how.

So while we’re in SC we decide to take the kids out to the beach. He picked Sunset Beach; a lovely stretch of sandy coastline that shelves gently into Monterey Bay. It is quite a relaxing spot if you are, in fact, intelligent enough to remain on dry land.

At any rate, we arrived at the beach. I had my wetsuit. My husband and kids had parkas. We were ready for an authentic Northern California beach excursion minus the hypothermia that seems to plague bikini-clad tourists who’ve watched too much television.

I’m not going to bother going into detail about the ambivalent signage everywhere that indicated that yes, while it was true that one could technically swim at this particular beach, it was not generally advisable. Not that there were signs that specifically said “Keep Out” or “perhaps you should reconsider” or even “update your life insurance.” Instead, there was a plethora of directions on how to survive should the ocean throw an undertow, sleeper wave or riptide your way.

I’m also not going to bore you with details of waves several feet taller than me, jellyfish and kelp infested swells, or even the fact that I would have had to swim halfway to Japan to get beyond the surfline.

Sufficed to say, things were not going well. I was taking a ton of foam in the face and within ten minutes I felt like I had eaten a salt lick. Have I mentioned that I’m terrified of water? These are but a few of the reasons why - when I saw the nice boy with the lifeguard gear waving at me from the beach - I was more than happy to pack it in.

“What’s up? Is there a problem?” I asked the kid, not that I didn’t know the answer. Of course there was a problem; some idiot at Fleet Feet had set me loose with a wetsuit.

“Um…” The kid started to hem. He didn’t need to talk. His expression said it all, Lady, there’s a whole list of reasons you have no business being out here but you’re a sasquatch and I’m afraid you’ll rip my arms off before I reach #50.

“There’s an awful riptide comin’ through here today.” The kid stammered. He pointed to a red warning flag that was most definitely not there before I’d gotten in the water. Not that it wouldn’t have been helpful to know. “Could you, uh, just swim closer to the lifeguard tower?”

“Do you mean swim closer to it or get out?”

“Um…” The kid looked at me and then looked at his feet.

“Look, what would you do?” I asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t be swimming. Not out here anyway.”

“Can you just tell me that I’m being kicked out of the ocean?”

“You’re being kicked out of the ocean.”

“King Neptune thanks you.”

My family and I have been on vacation. Or more like a “staycation” since our time away from home wasn’t exactly far from home.

Still, my online presence has been next to nill and I have been neither posting nor visiting other blogs which, I realize, makes me A Very Bad Person And Flaky Blogger and really? After such prolonged neglect who could blame my laptop if it decided to break up with me and move on to a more dedicated end user who would caress it with soft kisses and a tender upgrade to Windows Vista? Not I.

But I’m back now and boy, I have to say that after several days of choking on smoke and ash from wildfires in Monterey, Big Sur, Watsonville and Santa Cruz it sure was refreshing to return to the Sacramento area and find that it too was a charred and smoke-filled bowl of Hell.

…and I’ll bet a $20 Starbucks giftcard that every televangelist in America is gleefully proclaiming that these wildfires are proof that God is still in the smiting business and legalizing gay marriage is as good a reason as any for him to convert every Californian’s home to ash.

At any rate, I’m back. But not that back since I am going to have to further neglect my laptop while I complete a huge project for my summer accounting class and if the words “summer accounting class” didn’t cause whatever was in your hands to fall to the ground and shatter while you crossed yourself and said a Hail Mary for me then you are a black-hearted and soulless being beyond salvation.

Also, in case you’re wondering, that top photo is a rather large jellyfish that my husband and I found washed up on the beach in Marina last week. I’d love to say that I picked it up and relived my glory days by starting a jellyfish fight with my husband using that hamburger-sized monster but I’d be lying.

Nah, I was feeling rather kind that day so I picked up this little half-dollar-sized jobber and hucked it at him instead. 

Jellyfish fights… good times!