Dog Days

It's not August yet, but if these aren't the dog days of summer...
I got home from Dallas yesterday evening and can tell from the drive south that the great state of Texas could use some rain. Everything from Hutchins to Centerville is brown. If someone throws a cigarette out a car window, there will be fire!
I spent five days with the MP and her mama while dad was in California on business. We had some serious girl time. The baby at three months is a real little character who has a winning smile and more expressions than a mime. I think she believes she can talk because she just carries on up a storm when you talk to her. She does this thing with her lips and tongue that makes it look as if she's trying to imitate what she sees your mouth doing as you speak. I know, only a grandmother would think such foolishness.
Even after five days of not thinking about it, the great class reunion debate is still simmering on the back burner of my brain. To go or not to go, THAT is the question. Truthfully, my bottom line is that I can't figure out how I could stand to go by myself (What if there's a lull in the action? Who would you talk to then?). At one time in my life, I would have been curious to see some of the people from school. Now...the desire just isn't there. I didn't like high school all that much. It was a hard time for me, so why would I want to relive it? I've sort of gotten over it by now. So why renew the subscription? So where's the conflict? The conflict is in the little part of my brain that says, "What's wrong with your anti-social ass that you don't want to get together after forty years with all those fun loving people who have gone to so much trouble to rent a ballroom and find 200 people who haven't even addressed a Christmas card, let alone spoken for more than half a lifetime?" Ticket $45, dress $250, fond memories priceless.....Uh, I don't think so.
It's less than a month now until I will return to work. Email from the department chair has picked up, a sure indicator that they are meeting to plot their strategy. No, I absolutely will not be there to help pass out textbooks. I don't care how much comp time you're offering.
The three best reasons to be a teacher? June, July and August. Really old joke with a solid kernel of truth. The summer has been long in the slow procession of days without much serious purpose, but has flown when I think of how soon it will be time to get up before daylight and be accountable to 150+ young persons, determined to try and resist your best efforts to get them to think that the Constitution is more interesting than the text message that's waiting on the personal messaging device in the backpack. There's so much relaxing yet to be done and I'm running low on free time.
Ah the Maytag is buzzing. Time to put in another load. Maybe I'll finish up in here and head out for a walk before the temperature "feels like" 104.