Big Fat Lazy Summer (2023)

 Every summer is different.  What can I say?   Two summers ago we played Monopoly constantly in the summer.  When one game finished, we started a new one.  This summer we played one game of Monopoly

 I dont know, maybe it is taste, maybe it is age.  

Last summer I recall my daughters were sleeping till around 10 or 10.30 and I must have been rowing from 10 or so because they would be asleep when I left, but awake when I got back.  

This summer was different again.  

It had been my plan to go rowing and come back and eat breakfast and we would

have an outing from around 11am till 4 in the afternoon or something.  Maybe eat lunch out.  Well, you know what they say about plans:  Man plans, God laughs... is that how it goes? 

The thing is, my daughters were sleeping till at least noon, sometimes more, till 1pm.  Now how did that happen?  And am I a bad father for letting that happen? 

Two things.  1. I think sleep is a good thing especially for teen agers.  They also say that TOO MUCH sleep is not good for you, but I would rather err with too much sleep rather than too little sleep.  And what is too much sleep?  More than ten hours?  I dont know.  You remember that experiment where the men lived in the caves with no light and their bodys naturally slept for twelve hours? So they figured that at some point in our history, pre pre pre pre industrialization, the circadian sleep rhythms of humans was twelve hours.  So, More than twelve hours is too much.  But actually i have heard that more than ten hours is too much. They were getting 10 to 12 hours of sleep.  I was hoping their brains were growing growing growing in that time, as the brain is usually growing the most during sleep in teen agers.  You can correct me if I am way wrong.. 

2.  Its the summer.  So what if they sleep till noon or 1pm.  I mean they are missing a nice part of the day in the morning, but we arent really morning people, although that  can change. Essentially, they were going to bed around 1am and sleeping 11 hours or so.  Big deal.  If they werent allowed to get a good good sleep in the summer, when can they?  Teenagers need sleep.  Summer and sleep can go together. 

I must say that it crimped my plans of making road trips of any size besides to the grocery store or the library or small outings.  Even a movie on Sunday at 3pm had to be planned well.  But again, I say, let them eat cake, I mean let them sleep.  I am not a military type guy, rise and shine at 5am.  And, as I said, summer is summer. Summer is the time to do it the way we want to. 

My wife is the planner and "lets get up and go on the outing".  I am sort of the opposite, although I do appreciate the sightseeing and when something is organized, I wont shy from it.  But, I figure my wife will take them on some trips. We are here, and this is the sort of laid back, take it easy, do our traditions, part of the summer.  

So.... they were sleeping till noon.  We always had a good time in the evening, watching our TV, sometimes going down to the dock to watch the stars.  One daughter and I watched the meteor shower in mid August and saw 5 meteors fly across the sky.  In the darkness, the really big fish come out and jump up to catch a fly and you hear big splashes once in a while on the lake.  But the night star sky is amazing in the woods with so many stars. And ever since watching the original Star Trek series again, I have a renewed respect for the Milky Way galaxy and all that is out there, just in our galaxy.  When I look up at the night sky, I can think of it as "our" galaxy that we have to find out about. 

But back to the sleeping. So, it was rather a downtempo summer with not a lot happening, but I was not dejected.  We still did a lot.  Thanks to all who helped, including our trip to my mother who we havent seen since 2019 (largely because of covid), our trip to the state park, and of course the local branch of our public library who every year put on summer activities several times a week including rock painting and this year tie dyeing.  

 Really, the loss of the morning hours, well who knows what we would have been doing if we hadnt been sleeping? Probably just the same things as we did in the evening, besides watching the night sky. My friend at another cottage got up at 8am or earlier and he would mess around on his computer and then take a nap sometime in the day, even later in the morning. So what is the difference? I let them sleep. Leave me a note if you think I did it wrong.  

It is the beginning of the school year now.  I write this on Sunday, the last night before school starts tomorrow, on Sept 4, but I still have a couple stories from the summer I have in the pipeline. So, i hope you wont be too upset if I continue with the great summer topic where also I shine as a father (well... relatively speaking, at least a glimmer).  Next post will probably be on summer trips.  

Household name in the UK, grand composer of ambient techno.  Rerelease of the album "PINK".   Fourtet.