Friday Fives

1. What is the best part about late summer?
The crisp air and football. I love me my football.

2. what is your favorite memory and why?
Wow, extra bonus points for particularly vagueness.

3. when you were small, did you realize summer vacations were not going to happen forever?
I was probably four or so and my cousins started going off to school and I was faced with the reality of life without eternal sunshine.

4. where was your favorite summer vacation? why?
As a wee boy, dad loaded up the pick up camper, tossed in Julz, ma and I and we headed off to Disneyland. A summer vacation in Disneyland, in the 1970s – as a child – that is a special summer vacation.

5. If you could have one last real summer vacation and cost was not an issue, where would you go and why?
I have always had a hankering for Nova Scotia. I don’t know why, but the extreme northeast coast is a strong draw for me.

7 Replies to “Friday Fives”

  1. 1) That’s when I usually win the Powerball.

    2) I like Kingston. It is dependable and gives the fastest processing time in my computer.

    3) No.

    4) For about 5 years we used to drive down to a friend’s house deep in the heart of Mexico. It was a 3 day trip and lots of craziness ensued.

    5) Australia for the rest of my life, thank you very much.

  2. !) The best part of late summer is knowing that the season will soon be over.

    @) I think my favorite memory is getting the voicemail from Beggars Group US that said, “Hi, Edward. It’s Matt from Beggars. We’d like to offer you the job & just wanted to know when you can start.”

    #) When I was small, I wasn’t aware the summer vacations wouldn’t last forever because I rarely had them. My schools were overcrowded so we were on that track system (4 months on, 2 months off, or something like that) & my parents usually pulled me out of school for vacations anyway. It’s a wonder I made it through 5th & 6th grade since I was in Europe, California & Hawaii most of the time.

    $) My favorite summer vacation was coming to NYC for the first time in 2003. Thom was out here for work & finagled a hotel room all to himself so I could sneak in & our & explore the city as I liked for a week. Additionally, we’d just formed our chain gang of love together so it was like a honeymoon.

    %) If I could go anywhere in the world for a summer vacation & cost is not an issue, I would go everywhere including (but not limited to) the Mediterranean, Iceland & New Zealand.

  3. 1. Late summer = harvest. cooler weather. football. thunderstorms. back to school. almost fall.

    2. Impossible to choose. The Christmas I got my Lightbright. First tooth fairy visit. Moving to London. First day I saw Reid. Going to Game 7 when the Avs won the cup (the last time). Hawaii for our honeymoon. Crete when I was 12. etc. etc.

    3. No, I thought they’d last forever & ever…those were the days.

    4. We used to spend summers at Chataqua Lake in upstate NY at my mom’s family cottage. Fishing, swimming, waterskiing, annual 4th of July party, Winding festival….lots ‘o fun.

    5. Like Roy, I’ve developed a recent fascination with going to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. If cost was no issue, however, that would just be the start of a whirlwind global tour. On a 1st class private jet, of course, as I can’t handle air travel such as it is these days.

  4. 1. I’ll go with Jenny, and say the harvest—the tastes of summer like cantaloupe, peaches, and peas.

    2. Getting a shiny tricycle on my third birthday. It’s been a long winding downward spiral since that one happy moment.

    3. Very much so. We used to spend our summers in our pink adobe summer home in the San Luis Valley. Summer “officially” began when we got there, and was officially over the day we had to leave.

    4. See above—the first 9 years of my life, we spent our summers at our summer house. My siblings and I had the world’s largest sandbox and every Tonka toy ever invented. We’d play from dawn till dusk. Good times.

    5. The key word here is “last.” Are we assuming that you could never go on a vacation again? If so, I’ll go with Jenny (maybe on the same jet even)—and keep the party going as long as possible around the globe.

  5. 1. The crisp air and weather that says, “You made it past all that hot muggy crap, get ready for the good stuff baby.”

    2. Can’t single out too many, basically any where I don’t end up near dead are good for me.

    3. I never really thought about summer vacations. I was pretty happy even when school was in.

    4. Pablo and I went to Mexico, for only a week even, but we rented a convertible Beetle and drove along the coast. I fell in love with him and the country and the ocean. Yeah, that didn’t suck, even if all 3 of ’em have since wished death upon me.

    5. Japan.

  6. 1) Late night lightning storms while reading The Great Gatsby, as of last night.

    2) Hot crepe nuetella hitting my tongue after a jaunt up and down the Champs Elysees in freezing drizzle.

    3) Due to the jeffco track system, I was off for two months in spring and two in fall until I was 9 or 10; summer vacation has since never really meant much to me, other than being stuck at home sans a/c.

    4) Spring vacation ’88, brand new cherry red Subaru station wagon on a road trip to California. Memories begin in Wendover NV; in my head, that was when I knew we were really traveling, my mother can also recount that bad mexican made for an exorcist style vomiting on my part in our motel. Next stop was Lake Tahoe, after seeing the lake, a billboard for “Moonstruck” stands out rather starkly in my head; a decade later when I finally saw it, it became one of my favorite movies. Breakfast in Placerville the next morning yielded the best grits to my recollection. Napa didn’t likely mean then what it means today, but its green rolling hills stand out vividly in my mind. San Fran was a barely even a stop for us other than the Golden Gate bridge; and interestingly, now, even though I’m a homo, I have little desire to go there. Monterey stands out more than anywhere on that trip. It was my first real exposure to the ocean. I recall looking several places for large plastic cups, so we could walk across the street from our hotel to the beach and build sandcastles. Fresh seafood was far less important to me than seeing otters from the pier we had dinner on; however I remember later on that Monterey is when I had enjoyed orange ruffy, or so said my mother when she’d bake it for dinner. Our trip down the coast is a blur of rocky shores, my father spitting plum pits out the window, stopping to collect shells(once collecting a crab at the same time), and fields of artichokes and strawberries. Southern California stands out little to me. I know that we did what families did, and went to every amusement and theme park we could; however, other than Pirates of the Caribbean and mother getting sick on Space Mountain, the only really amusing thrill ride was to be in the car with my bookie Aunt Dorothea driving. She had a gray whale, late 70’s T-bird or Lincoln, with red velour; I was little so I was in the back in the middle and could only feel the commotion. We stayed with Aunt Dorothea actually, who along with her husband Olin, kept horses. I remember seeing one piss and thinking ‘yellow milk;’ always a memory that has stood out, I’m not sure why. The desert of Southern California is a blur to me ending with a stay in Laughlin, NV. We stayed in a rather large riverboat looking monstrosity, and I was amazed by the fact that we were on the Colorado river. Perhaps due only to its name I felt like it was a piece of home, and that soon our trip would be ending. Our next stop was of course the Grand Canyon. Thats the only time I’ve ever seen it, and no matter how hard I try, when I recall what it looked like all I can think of is the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. I perhaps did not get the right perspective on it, as that which I can easily recall having looked down the Black Canyon several times; nonetheless the grand canyon conjures a fond memories. After the canyon, we headed to a small town in the southeast of Utah called Mexican Hat. Staying at a small inn along a creek and below a massive red rock face at the end of a sharp bend in the highway, it felt like we were in the opening of our own private canyon. After enjoying the evening walking along our creek and watching the sunset, our vacation was over in my mind; I remember thinking then that it was an awful feeling to have to go back to normal life. The drive back through Colorado was all towns and passes I’d seen dozens of times before, and I spent most of it studying all the places we had been in the road atlas.

    5) I wouldn’t mind lazing about on a beach on the west coast of Coasta Rica, or perhaps my own atol in the pacific; and there would be a well staffed bar on the beach, and of course there would be someone great lazing about with me.

  7. 1)Almost hockey season
    2)The third one, it comes soon enough that it makes me giggle
    3)They still exist just not for me
    4)Camp
    5)Camp, forever.

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