So I thought I'd do my annual "end is near" rant a little earlier than usual.
My "end of summer is near" rant, that is.
Might as well. The back-to-school ads have started, a reflection of the fact that the first day of school in these here parts gets sooner every year. As longtime followers of this column surely know, I'm about as unready for school to start as the children are.
Soon Facebook will be filled with images of tearful parents dropping their now-grown teens off at college, along with cute little moppets in their first-day-of-school gear. Wasn't it only yesterday that we were looking at images of high school beauties in their Hollywood-glamour prom gowns, their handsome prom dates sporting slim-fit tuxes and crazy-fancy hipster shoes with no socks?
Speaking of clothes, didn't I just rearrange my closet, shunting all the winter stuff off on the back racks?
To make matters worse, fall clothing catalogs are trickling in, bearing photos of smiling models in darker, transitional-type tops and light sweaters paired with skinny jeans and leggings. Am I ready to start coordinating my fall wardrobe? No. I haven't gotten my summer wardrobe together the way I want to. I'm not ready for Tax Free Weekend, designed to help make buying school clothes more affordable, but which benefits us all. I seem to be Money Free every time Tax Free Weekend comes around anyway.
This annual rant goes back to the fact that I look forward to summer, but when summer comes I never seem to be in a position to do much of anything about it except, as I lamented on a social-media meme recently, go to work. Not only have I not been on a summer vacation, I haven't even been to a picnic or the water park. I've been to the farmers market exactly once. Three things need to line up: Time, money and weather, and they don't line up nearly often enough.
Longtime readers will also note that I often urge the stopping and smelling of the roses. I always intend to follow my own advice, really I do. Unfortunately, the roses seem to have to wait until I'm finished wearing one of my multiple hats. Or the admission price to go and smell them always seems to amount to a chunk of the grocery bill.
So the next thing I know, summer's "over." The pool closes, never mind it still being a fafillion degrees. The ice cream trucks and shaved ice booths disappear. And ugh, strawberry prices start to creep up again.
I need to get off my duff and do some type of Summer Enjoying. There's gradually been more and more talk of football on the telly. Am I ready? No. Nor am I ready for pumpkins and chrysanthemums or the carbohydrate-laden comfort food of which I'm trying to restrict my intake.
Those who feel as I do are doubtless bracing themselves for the Death Knells of Summer: the early appearances of Halloween costumes and Christmas decorations in stores. While you're getting your children's school uniform coordinates, be sure to get those little Spider-Man and Wonder Woman outfits! Meanwhile, it's less than two months until the dreaded Mother of All Summer Death Knells: Labor Day.
I'm not the only one who feels summer is unfairly becoming the shortest season.
"Honestly, it seems like there is maybe one week of summer we can actually enjoy," Brie Dyas wrote in a Huffington Post piece in August 2014. "In June, everyone is thinking ahead to the July Fourth weekend, or muttering something about how it 'doesn't feel like summer yet.' In July, the back-to-school commercials start. In August, stores are filled with backpacks, school supplies and fall clothes. Then there is the ultimate indicator of not-summer, which is the appearance of the Pumpkin Spice Latte, which millennial women mark on their calendars as the summer version of Groundhog Day."
Which brings me back to why I'm writing this column even earlier than usual. I might as well just bite the bullet and bid summer, or that ideal picture of it, farewell now.
Or maybe not. Just as the barflies have concluded that it's five o'clock somewhere, we warm-weather lovers can always say it's summer/hot on the planet somewhere.
If only we could get there.
Summer lovin' -- Email blast:
hwilliams@arkansasonline.com
Style on 07/23/2017