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.

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!

As of Tuesday I will have completed my first semester in the funeral services program at ARC and I have to say that I have LOVED it. I love the course material, love the instructors, love my classmates.

In fact, the head in which I dwell is home to a big fat love-in and if there was a soldier holding a rifle around I’d put a flower in the end of it.

Whoa, hippie image overload. Forget I typed that. Shake. Erase. Start over.

Anyway. During the last little while I’ve discovered that I have the ability to absorb copious amounts of chemical equations and anatomical concepts without my brain liquefying in protest and leaking out my ears to stain my shirt.

What’s more is that I am finding I actually enjoy the science coursework. As in I really get a kick out of it. Like, I’m getting A’s and everything. Who’da thunk?

I could not be more confounded right now if the skies had opened up and the great forefinger of God himself were to point down as he boomed, “You, with the bad haircut! You’re not nearly as dim as you thought you were!”

…and caused the great ball of deathly black discouragement that has been “the sciences” all my life to morph into a subject area that I can grasp with some ease and holy crap! The notion that I might be capable of succeeding in an area more technical than Play-Doh would undoubtedly cause all of my ex-boyfriends and most of my extended family to have a collective aneurysm. But I digress.

To this end, my husband – the ever patient patron saint of Encouraging One’s Wife to Pursue Whatever Schizophrenic Path She Pleases – has suggested that upon completion of the funeral services program I leisurely pursue a BS at UC Davis.

So I think I’m going to do that. Maybe I’ll even pursue a masters. Why not? I may be 50 before I graduate but I figure I’m going to turn 50 someday anyway and I might as well do it with a degree in microbiology