Camping at the Lake--it must be the end of summer

The tent's up in the backyard airing out since the last time we used it which was............uh 1983 I think. Mr. B is walking around yelling random things like, chips, ice, camera, bug spray. Ah it must mean camping at Big Mac. And if it's camping, then it must mean that it's nearly time for the week on the district calendar when it says "Teachers return."

If I'm a teacher, why am I not looking forward to the beginning of school? I think people think students are the ones who don't want to come back, but frankly, I BECAME a teacher for summer. Yes, I admit it. I know I'm supposed to be one of those public employees and Americans that says, "Teachers just don't get paid enough" or "In the real world professional athletes would make 30K and teachers would get signed for million dollar contracts."

But I'm not. Teaching is the greatest job in the world. You work for nine months (sort of like having a baby, huh? I never thought of THAT!) and then you sunbathe for three. You're off when the kids are off. You have vacation when the temperature guage isn't dipping down at the sub-zero mark. And you get discounts at Ann Taylor LOFT and Barnes and Noble (except at Ann Taylor you don't have to try to convince them that you really are going to use it for actual classroom curriculum....sheesh! What's with the Nazi interrogation over How to Cook Tuscany, anyway? Like I didn't teach that last semester?)

But anyway, back to the tent. Weren't we supposed to have an RV by now? Isn't this the time in life, here with a daughter heading off to college, when we all jump on the Bayliner and sleep in the cabin below deck? (Okay, I just had a Titanic flash there--Close yer eyes wee bonnie babes as I sing ye to sleep...maybe I'm not that certain about sleeping on a boat.) I'm tired of sand in my (here's the rhyming part) C_ A_K at Big Mac. Can you say crack on a Blog? Great, I'll probably have CSI and the INS at my door tomorrow wondering why I'm using the word CRACK on my blog. But I'm a little over it. I've never eaten a single meal at the lake that didn't contain tiny grains of quartz grinding in my teeth. And come October, when I'm trying really hard to celebrate Columbus Day (oh don't get me going now...) and Halloween (please another blog, another time), I'll be sitting at my desk grading essays on Huckleberry Finn scraping white fine powder out of my left ear. Why? Because my right hand is preoccupied writing in green pen (never red, oh never red) Their, there, they're and It's, Its and Every day is not the same as EVERYDAY?

No because I went camping in July at the biggest man-made reservoir in the largest grass-covered sandhills in the world. We can only hope it blows a gale-force and the biting flies have finally hatched. Then it will be the end of summer--officially. A Prayer for Owen Meany??? All apologies to John Irving aside.....friends....say a prayer for me! Be ready for the quiz first day, and there will be extra credit for anyone who brings an armadillo.