Yesterday was one of those lazy summer days where we just let go of everything.

Dishes stayed piled up on the kitchen table and counter tops until well past the appointed time for dinner. There were torn-open boxes of Fruity Pebbles and Waffle Crisp still out on the table by 8:00 that evening. It is amazing how quickly a mess can amass itself if you don’t keep after it. A concept the kids don’t seem to get.

“Mannie, will you do the dishes, please.”

“But I did them LAST week,” he’ll complain, as if that ought to take care of that bothersome chore for the rest of his life.

Around noon we went to Papa’s for our usual Sunday Brunch. He did chicken right - he visited the Colonel. And he picked up one of the reddest, sweetest watermelons I have had in a long time. But I guess I had a little too much finger lickin’ goodness (along with my watermelon, green grapes and potato wedges). Could have been that, could be graft vs. host disease flaring up again, could be a side effect of my medications; but I wasn’t feeling too good after lunch. So while I crashed on the couch, the rest of the kids played a round of croquet out back.

Mannie had a playoff game Dani wanted to get to (I wanted to go to, but I just wasn’t feeling up to it - besides, my vision is so bad, I can barely make out the players on the field - much less which one is Mannie). The sun had come out and the day was warming up, so the kids decided they wanted to go swimming at Memorial Pool.

A sunny afternoon at the pool.

Now that’s summer!

The hot sun beating on your back, NO SCHOOL, the smell of chlorine and coconut sunscreen, too salty popcorn, NO SCHOOL, wet footprints on the hot concrete deck, NO SCHOOL, girls in bikinis - if that isn’t close to heaven, I don’t know what is.

But I missed all of that. The kids went swimming, Dani went to Mannie’s game - and I stayed home and cleaned out under our bed.