Simple Pleasures...

The warm feeling in my heart, knowing my children are with their grandparents. Makes my coffee taste like heaven.

Summer is truly, heavenly. Long lazy days, hot nights on the porch or in the pool, listening to peepers and peeping at myriad lightning bugs (what we called them as children). It is truly a golden time of year. Knowing that when we wake, we have the day before us, no crummy homework waiting, no 6:30 alarm.

Summer makes me think and speak in similes...trite little isms that make my teeth hurt -- like sugary candies.

My "babies" are so grown up! The empty nest isn't just a speck in the distance any more. And I have no desire for them to leave! A crappy day in summer is still better than any day in school. Can't help it; I like 'em, bickering and all.

Beautiful, delicate, creative daughter...she is truly the artist at work. I watch her grow and bloom, crafting images with her pencil and her lens, startling me with her perspective. She leaves me curious, wanting to see more.

Strong, handsome, tender-hearted son...in all his golden glory. His new-found confidence, his athletic prowess, his desire to enmesh himself in the outdoors. Would love nothing more than to be dropped in the middle of the forest to test his knowledge, skills and body.

They fill my heart. Sometimes, it literally aches with the fullness of them.

More coffee, please.

In the Summertime

There's a beautiful, soft, pillowy, serene space in my head that used to be filled with school.

The luxury...the bliss. Summer beckons and I am ready to accept her invitation. My alarm is turned off, my days are lengthened. The promise of those first few days when school has ended and possibilities abound, makes me think of sand and sunscreen-smell, popsicles and fireworks, crepuscular forays into the pool, and grill smoke.

It's liberating to put aside thoughts of carpools and math problems. I'll learn something new every summer day...the strange, warbling croak coming from the yard belongs to tiny, fingernail-sized froglets. The Bai Horapa (Thai Basil) likes the heat of the porch, but needs a drink every other day or so. The pups will eat almost any bug which crosses their paths -- including wasps.

I'll also learn about people from foreign lands, creatures great and small and events that shape history. Adventures come with me wherever I find myself, thanks to the teetering stack of summer reading culled from the library and book store. In summers past, I've consumed books like glasses of lemonade...twenty, thirty, even more one season. Lovely!

The Limber de Cocoa pops are firming up in the freezer and the voices of the (big) kids resonate from unseen parts of the house. The pups are spread around my feet like melted sugar; the heat changes their forms from tight balls of fluff to long, ungainly stripes whose every possible surface is in contact with the cool tile.

Outside is green, so very green! I'm ready to be barefoot again till September...

Hurry Up, Please -

When was the last time you heard anyone tell their children, "Mind your manners"? Yes, I thought so. Children aren't taught manners because parents don't bother with them either. We rush through our lives, communicating through technology, with limited personal exchanges, let alone niceties like please and thank you.

Texting has all but done away with punctuation, grammar and spelling. We rely on emoticons to get our feelings across, rarely on inflection, tone and facial expression. I truly believe we're raising a generation of children who will not understand the art of conversation.

And the hurry up-ness of all of our communication is a natural offshoot of our lack of patience, low tolerance and zero courtesy. Where do we most often experience this uncivilized behavior? You know the answer. In our jobs and classrooms, sure. But driving...that's the biggie in my book. The term "Road Rage" seems to have first appeared only as recently as 1988. Which means that for it to have become as commonplace as it is, there must be a whole lot of it going on.

A radio psychologist, known to her loyal following as "Dr. Laura", has one pearl of wisdom that I often quote. She says to "Be polite." To the estranged family members who must see each other at the occasional gathering. To the divorced parents trying to remain amicable for the sake of the children. To the disgruntled employee looking to coexist peacefully with the boss. To to harried woman who can't seem to get her mother-in-law's respect or acquiescence regarding the raising of her children. To all of them, Dr. Laura says to be polite.

Think about it. If we were all polite, what a different world it would be. Disagree, debate, assert, delegate. All of them are still possible, but so much nicer, with politeness.

That having been said, driving to my home in a semi-rural suburb, any way I choose to get there, I must cross a one-lane bridge. I can tell who the mannerly neighbors are, as well as the not-so-neighborly ones and the "interlopers". As I drove in this morning after an errand, I crossed two of our little bridges, and had two different experiences. But the second is the one that sticks with me. I'm so used to waiting on my side of the bridge, as yet another car flies up on the tail of the last, tagging on so as to make it across in the same round.

Today, as I waited for a car to complete the crossing, two motorbikes approached from the other side. And stopped. To let me cross. We took turns! We waved, smiled, and continued on our way. Feeling calm, with a little flush of happiness, I was pleased to be on the receiving end of good manners. Good manners have become a simple pleasure where once, they were the norm.