Happy Summer Solstice!

Do you remember being a kid and spending all year yearning for summer? 6/21/15 (This is a tribute to the end of summer. I miss it already!): Do you remember the bubbly feeling in your chest on the first really hot day? I still get that feeling. Yes, I work all summer just like everyone else who didn’t go into education, but there’s still something optimistic-feeling about the season.

I love so many things about it. I love the smell of sunscreen, the dzzting (made up word of the day) of bumble bees, the feel of the ocean on my skin, kayaking all weekend, wine at sunset, late-night thunderstorms. It all still fills me with optimism and, dare I say it, joy. Okay, sure, the subways are gross and people don’t wear enough deodorant or enough clothing and mosquitoes suck and I hate sweating through my clothes before I get to work and sometimes it’s too damned hot, but I don’t care. I will always be a summer kind of girl.

So today, I’m celebrating my favorite season with a stream-of-consciousness list of things I love that I associate with summer.

Childhood things:

• Tree swings
• Picnics at the beach
• Running through the sprinkler on the front lawn
• Sandcastles
• Mister Softee
• Spearmint Chapstick
• My grandma’s climbing roses
• Skipping
• Pool parties
• Drive-in movies
• Drinking from the hose
• Rainy days spent at the library
• Catching fireflies
• Sucking the nectar directly out of Mom’s azalea flowers (definitely not one of Mom’s favorite things)
• Spending the entire day in my bathing suit (How did we do that, by the way? Just the thought makes me itchy.)
• NO SCHOOL!!!!

Adult things:

• Sangria
• More sangria
• Eating outside
• Fire Island Drag Invasion
• 3 AM living room dance parties
• Clams at Ruby’s on the boardwalk in Coney Island
• Flip flops
• Banana Bad Ideas: very ripe bananas, vodka, chocolate syrup, & ice in a blender, ideally consumed on the beach. Even the deer love it! (See photo.)
• NYC LGBT Pride
• The smell of everyone’s grill going at once
• Shakespeare in the Park
• Kids playing in the flood on our street (That’s a Broad Channel thing, and it ended when they raised our street, but I’ll never forget it!)
• Guilty late-night post-dancing slices from Cherry Grove Pizza
• Kayaking in Jamaica Bay
• Food concessions on the boardwalk in Rockaway
• The whiff of diesel as neighbors’ boats go by our kitchen window
• Wysteria
• Coney Island Mermaid Parade
• STILL NO SCHOOL!!!

What are your favorite summer things?