Summer winding down

These last couple of weeks have been intensely relaxing. We've been doing a lot of focused activity in order to relax and have fun. As in: "Hurry up, we need to leave the beach so we can get back in time for the JT concert!" Or, "wake up, it's 5:30 and we want Shakespeare in the Park tickets!" It's fun, yet at times it seems more stressful than it needs to be.

My parents and grandparents met L and I at the beach for an afternoon last week. This turned out to be a kind of valedictory lap for my grandparents, who wanted to try each and every kind of snack food anyone has ever eaten at any beach. In the course of a few hours, we had seafood, ice cream, crepes, boardwalk fries, and Grotto's Pizza, the only kind of pizza I would take a bullet for. The funniest moment came when my grandma had just purchased her fries and she was struggling to rip some napkins off the big cylindrical roll. You know how some places have those cheap napkins now, the ones that are single-ply and come on a roll and you have to rip them off yourself? As if decent, regular napkins are just too taxing for restaurateurs to deal with? After battling with this thing, my grandma walked along and said to no one in particular, "that toilet paper's hard to get out," and the rest of us just burst out laughing. She just accepted the fact that this place was offering toilet paper as napkins. I think our grandparents deserve better.

The family fun continued when my sister arrived for a few days to enjoy the city and force us to clean our apartment before her arrival. She and I waited seven hours for Shakespeare in the Park tickets, and she impressed me with her ability to sleep like a rock for four of those hours, a beach towel over her head and snoring rhythmically the entire time. It was just like we had never left the beach, except instead of crashing waves I had my sister sounding like a construction site beside me. We had a blast for the rest of the time as well: checking out the view from the Top of the Rock, strolling around the neighborhood, and watching "Superbad," which some might think would be an awkward movie to see with your little sister, but not me.

But now all our visitors have left, and I'm bracing myself for school again. L is going to Armenia tomorrow for a week, which is depressing and means I will revert to bachelor mode, which is a much more primal and less tidy state of existence. Class starts for me next Monday, which means I actually have homework this weekend. Oh, and we'll be repainting the pink room in our place very soon -- either Celery or Blue Mesa or Cobalt or something similarly named. Etruscan Midnight? Plum Fantasia? Time will tell.