Summertime wrap-up . . .

Now that the Kielbasa is finished with its summertime hiatus--but I actually posted a few times!--I just want to lean back in the broken office chair and, in the immortal words of "The Boss", Bruce Springsteen:

"Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days."

Yes, I'm nostalgic for summer already, as educators all over the world are dragged kicking and screaming back to their classrooms. Well, those of us in the northern hemisphere, anyway. My apologies to those reading in Ecuador and Peru. I'm feeling the same pain you felt a few weeks ago.

The last 5 days in Spain were spent basking on the scorching white sands of coastal Valencia. Luiza and I did our best impersonations of your average Spanish slacker. Roll out of bed around 10, breakfast, back to bed, beach for 4 hours, taverna for cocktails, back to the hotel for the cost-cutting dinner of jamon, bread, olives and Sangria, then an evening wandering the city. It was a fitting end to 5 weeks in this gorgeous country. Here are a few pictures. Que bonita!

From there, it was a gauntlet run through airports, including a dead sprint across Heathrow,complete with an O.J. Simpson Hertz commercial juke move around a loud-mouth female liquor rep from Chicago. I only know this because she ended up on the same flight as me and proceeded to give me an earful when she arrived at the gate while I was being probed by the metal detector wand. If your out there somewhere lady, I'm not sorry for dropping some R-rated language as my sweat-drenched frame flew by. And while we're on the subject of airports, why is it that guy driving the huge cart usually flanked by a platoon of geriatrics won't give a guy with only 40 minutes between connections a ride to his gate? I ran by a couple of them that barely looked up from their Daily Telegraph, let alone asked me if I needed a faster mode of transport.

After 22 hours of travel, I reached the "Minnesota nice" confines of Lindbergh terminal (MSP) around midnight. Due to my scholarly pursuits in Madrid this summer, I was only afforded eight total days with the family. This included my cousin Mickey's graduation party where I was able to see a plethora of relatives in one location. It was like the Target Greatland of family visits (one stop shopping).

Just once, I'd like to schedule a family reunion in northern Minnesota where we all dress up in matching t-shirts and take a big group picture. And since when do people have weddings outside the summer months? I'm missing three cousins tying the knot in the next 6 months. No, the three of them aren't marrying each other. We're from Minnesota not Mississippi.

The remainder of the week included school shopping with Mom and Dad (as a teacher, you're never to old to have Mom take you shopping!), dinner at Grandma's house, an ill-fated fishing trip with my father (some nautical faux pas are better kept a secret, right Dad?), golf with my two brothers, and water-skiing at the cabin. We even found time to get everybody to smile for a family picture (no matching T's though).

I'm looking forward to the summer of 2010, when I will have finally concluded my schooling the real purpose for summer is realized. Eight days was not nearly enough time to hang out with the family and get all my visiting in, so some day I will take the better part of eight weeks to hang out in Minnesota and spend my days playing with my niece and nephew and shoveling goose crap off the beach at my brother's cabin. It's the simple things in life, ya know?