29 Things to Do for Entertainment This Summer

1. Invite friends over for a bar-b-que. Not a lot of money? B.Y.O.M.! (Bring your own meat.)
2. Try all of the flavors at your local ice cream shop. (Too many? Enlist your family!)
3. Take a walk. Admire the gardens/flowers of those in your neighborhood. Ask for seeds or clippings to plant in your yard.
4. Go to an outdoor concert. (Check the paper or on-line.)
5. Watch the kids playing in your neighborhood. Listen, too.
6. Run through the sprinkler!
7. Paint a fun design/color scheme on your mailbox.
8. Go camping. (Need to go really cheap? Go in your backyard!)
9. Paint a fun design/scene somewhere in your house.
10. Grow some tomatoes on your porch (balcony/fire escape/veranda/back stoop).
11. Go yard sale-ing.
12. Buy lemonade at every lemonade stand you see (or start your own)!
13. Eat lots of fresh fruit.
14. Invent a recipe for fruit salad.
15. Find a recipe for a fun frozen treat.
16. Use a blender to make your own smoothies or frozen coffee drinks.
17. Look for outdoor art in your town/city/botanical garden.
18. Go to the farmers’ market.
19. Go to a flea market.
20. Find a nice body of water, and go swimming–or wading!
21. Go to the park and play basketball or tennis (or play on the playground!)
22. Go on a picnic.
23. Go for a walk in the evening, and see what you see in your neighbors’ lighted windows.
24. Eat a fresh tomato whole.
25. Sit in the sun.
26. Go on a walk at night, and go stargazing.
27. Build a sand castle.
28. Eat a sno-cone.
29. Go to a fair. (Or a carnival).

Buying Furniture is Like Test Driving a Car in a Fish Bowl!

I have just crossed one of the last thresholds of young-adulthood. I bought a car, I bought a house, and now I have also bought furniture. Real furniture, I mean–the kind you don’t even have to put together! Although it is not quite as expensive or stressful as either house or car buying, buying furniture has its own set of unique challenges.

When you buy a car you get to take it for a test drive, out on the road on your own. If you want to, at this point, you are able to examine anything you need to in closer detail. When you buy a house it is difficult to “test” it, but at least the owners aren’t staring at you, or listening as you pick apart the flaws in their structure and comment on the ugly green linoleum. When you buy furniture you have none of these luxuries.

You walk into the furniture store and walk into a series of attractively furnished “rooms” (if it is an upscale furniture store), or the first of several rows of the same kind of furniture (if things aren’t quite so fancy). You wander around until you see something you like, and then you are stuck. Because then, if you are seeking some kind of furniture where comfort is important, you have to test it out. Although it is important to have an attractive couch that will match your decor, you don’t want visitors (or more importantly, yourself) to go “oof”   you sit down with a thud on a sofa that is built like a park bench. You also don’t want to sink in so far that reinforcements have to be called when you are ready to disembark from the couch.

This is all well in good, except that every furniture store I’ve been in has approximately 3.5 salespeople per customer. And they all stare at you. Not a one of them seems to know how to mind their own business. So if you are shopping for couches (as I was) you are required to walk around from sofa to sofa, stopping to sit on any that look promising. Unfortunately, since this is a test (and only a test) you immediately hop back up to make a beeline for the next sofa. This too is fine, except that it left me feeling like I was a wandering whack-a-mole. And those salespeople just kept staring the entire time.

As if this is not undignified enough, you have to see if you can come up with ways to secretly test the furniture to see if it will be up to its real roles once you buy it. I don’t know about you, but when I am at home watching t.v., I don’t sit primly on the cushion of the couch with both feet on the floor. It is more of a sprawl. So I find myself sitting on these couches in the store, and then trying to covertly turn my body and tuck my legs in such a way that I can tell if the couch will be comfortable to lay on, while still appearing to be “casually shopping” so I don’t have to get the if-you-are-interested-in-this-one speech from the hovering salesperson. (I also don’t think they would be amused if I took off my shoes and burrowed into napping position to really give the old sofa a run for its money). And what about sitting at the opposite end from my person and trying to figure out if, in a reclining down position, we will be able to snuggle and read on the couch without killing each other, or knocking someone to the floor? (This is not to even mention the precarious and delicate task of discreetly testing mattresses for any other uses than slumber that might be required).

It wasn’t easy, but I did it. (And you can, too!) In the process of couch buying I was not openly laughed at, no salespeople were injured fighting each other for my sale, and I managed to find something that would resist (ha!) pet hair. I also managed to test for and meet all three of my couch requirements: 1. Not too hard for me, 2. Not too soft for my person, 3. Big enough for both of us, and 4. Cushions that don’t appear to eat the remote. We even managed to find all of this in a “room set” for a bargain price. All we had to do was get a color neither of us had considered in the first place that is probably too light for us not to mess up. Ah, adulthood. Who says there are no coming of age rituals in the U.S.A.? With all of the big three (car, house, furniture) I am probably an exemplary member–and next week I’ll be ready to run for office–I get a washer and dryer!

Gray Day

Today is a gray day, and I feel gray.  The sun is not out. But it is not raining.  I am not happy, but I am not sad.  I don’t feel strongly enough about anything that has happened in the course of this day to comment on it.  I feel like I am waiting for something, but there is nothing that I am waiting for.  I have no feelings or thoughts that are black or white that will rise to the surface.  All of them are gray today, and none have gone either way.

To navigate my gray day I have not done much.  I got gas, and bought deli-meat.  Both staples of living.  I sent an email and packed some boxes.  I made coffee and ate cheese.  I took a phone message and fed the pets.

For dinner I will have something from a box or a can, and a piece of fruit from the fridge.  With that I will drink water from the faucet, no ice.  I may finish watching a movie I started yesterday, or pay the bills, or tidy the house.

Yesterday I was full of feelings.  I was angry and passionate and sad and relieved.  I drove fast and yelled and screamed and cried.  I stomped around and listened to loud music.  I questioned things and took sides.  Things roared, and burned.

But today I tiptoed into the day with a life hangover from yeterday.  And softly padded through.  I sat and stood and checked the mail.  I quietly went through things alone.  And just tried to feel back to normal.

Hamburger Buns in 4 Packs

Why do all hamburger buns come in 8 packs? Why do hot dog buns sometimes come in packs of even more? Do no single people eat hamburgers? And how many families are really able to use all of these buns at once?

I never ate hamburgers when I lived on my own. I would have had to eat them for over a week straight, if I didn’t want the buns to go bad. For single people, there is a hamburger bun for each night of Hanukkah. Perhaps you think I should freeze them. Modern appliances allow this convenience. Unfortunately, I do not really enjoy the taste of frozen hamburger buns. Once they’ve been frozen they are never quite the same, and I have to eat them toasted to be able to really enjoy them.

And while I am not suggesting individually wrapped hamburger buns for single people, (because what the United States needs is really more packaging) I do wonder why it is that buns cannot be packaged in groups of 4. Or more to the point, why they aren’t.

As part of a couple, when I make hamburgers for dinner, even if both of use eat two, a four pack would be plenty. If I were living alone I could probably eat all four buns before they went bad. A family of four, eating one burger apiece would be doing just fine. And aren’t there more of us living in groups of one and two and four? Yes, some families have eight, but how many have three? Why all of this senseless waste of good white bread?

Is it easier to buy an extra pack or waste all of those buns? Why should I feel such a sense of futility at my wastefulness every time I want to grill out a burger? And perhaps I am wrong, but I think the bun companies should be all for this as well. Maybe they couldn’t charge as much for one pack of buns, but they could charge more for 2 packs– thereby getting more money from anyone who wanted 8. And all of those holdouts, who cannot bring themselves to eat a hamburger because of the guilt of the buns would rush back, with open arms, to reclaim the hamburger as a meal ripe for the eating.

Who stands to lose from selling hamburger buns in four packs? How can this go wrong? Perhaps sparrows in backyards across the nation will feel the hurt from this initiative, but the rest of us will sleep easier at night. If for the sake of the sparrows, you refuse to go for four-packs, couldn’t you at least sell me six? Four for me, and two for them? After all, the last thing we need is a country where the birds are obese, too!