New Tricks

With summer officially here, it got officially hot yesterday. I have no official complaints.

You may wish to brush up on local water use regulations. Pasadena's water shortage has been declared officially over (yay!), but certain instances of water waste are still out of line, baby! Sprinklers are for running through, but not between 9am and 6pm.

That's okay. Yesterday it was good and toasty long after 6:00. Boz and I went for an evening walk and it took us about an hour to go eight blocks. I know he's an older pooch, but jeez. Or maybe it's me. I don't mean I'm an old pooch, but it did feel good to stroll, stop where we wanted to, take a few pictures, smell things, etc. But I didn't pee on anything. Honest. And as tempting as they were, I did not drink from the sprinklers.

Free Time

Bus lot behind John Muir High School

In the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD), school starts September 14th. For the sake of the school kids, I hope it feels like a long way off. School's a great thing, but summer is, too, and kids need that block of time for disorganized activities, being lazy and having nothing to do.

It's no secret children are over-booked and over-stressed these days. My neighbors were talking yesterday about seeing eight-year-old girls in make-up and sexy outfits at summer school. Why, when I was a kid, we never...

Hmm.

Whose parents do I sound like?

Yeah. When I was a kid I swore I'd never say some of the things my parents said. But I'm right.

Change is inevitable. But I'm sorry kids have to be so organized, so supervised, so scheduled even in summertime. I wonder if my parents were sorry I had to spend my summers riding my horse to the candy shop and building forts in the forest and swinging from the rope that dangled from the willow tree over the river bend.