What I did on my summer vacation

[Kim]

I've not been around much this summer and as school's starting back up in two weeks, I thought I'd check in and see what everyone's been up to in the warm months.

I'll go first:
1. Post-schoolyear, stress-relieving vacation in England.
2. Weddings. Three of 'em. And none of 'em mine. Phew.
3. Road trip to Boston. Eighteen hours in the car, but the whale watching was totally worth it.
4. Hot air balloon ride over Niagra Falls.
5. Reading until my eyes bugged out. Had to get new contact lenses by mid-July.

And you?

Kim
[size=1]the slacker weenie mod[/size]

[Roge]

Wow Kim - the hot air balloon ride sounds really neat.

Winter (end-of) here in NZ but we (the family) went to the UK for five weeks. Mainly in and around London visiting ALL the relatives. Some was good some was like visiting relatives. Went on the London Eye which was really cool and went to more than a few nice olde world public houses.

We then went to the south of France (St Aygulf - near Nice) for a further two weeks and drank beer, wine, ate far too much and lay around the pool and the beaches. This was the real holiday. On the way home we went via Paris and spent two days there. Far too short but this was a quick add-on after all the SARS stuff in Singapore etc where we were going to stay (been there three times before).

Seven weeks away from work and winter was great. Feeling relaxed and have a fast fading tan. Role on summer!

TTFN
Roge

[Rachel Bunting]

Uhhhhh

I spent the summer slacking off at work, spending waaaaaaaaaay too much time on this really cool poetry board.

I also spent a great deal of time amusing Roge and Porter with my "co-worker" stories.

That's about it.
Sigh.
Rachel

[Donner]

London? South of France?? Paris??? Sheesh. I'm not telling now.

[pr]

I've effectively been on holiday for the past three years.

I'm now looking for work, and expect to be engaged in such an activity (work--not looking for work) for the next 40 years.

Wish me luck.

[Kristi]

Sat in this chair and typed stuff.
Sat in another chair and sewed stuff.

[Roge]

Originally posted by Donner
London? South of France?? Paris??? Sheesh. I'm not telling now.

awww please tell Donner. I had to save for four years and still have an abyss to fill in my Visa. I can't imagine what it would have cost if we had to pay for accommodation!


Roge
Who likes to pretend that Rachel's mad co-worker may be my imaginary co-worker. I think I need to find some human company for my office.

[Kim]

Originally posted by Roge
Wow Kim - the hot air balloon ride sounds really neat.

It was amazing. I'd never been to the falls before, and to see it from that vantage point was thrilling. I'd never been in a hot air balloon before, either, so it was a two-for.

Went on the London Eye which was really cool . . .

Me, too. What a view. I loved it so much I went twice -- once on a very clear day, and once at night.

We then went to the south of France (St Aygulf - near Nice) for a further two weeks and drank beer, wine, ate far too much and lay around the pool and the beaches.

Lucky dog.

My tan's fading fast, too -- mostly because it's not really a tan, just a collection of freckles that have decided to join forces.

Kim

[Tony Smith]

Most of my summer was like a dream. On a warm night in June I became famous in the desert when I was enlisted by lottery to escort the King's dog - a wretch of a mutt named Dory which no Grenadier, butler, or servant would approach - to the business end of the park.. We stood together by a wall overrun with ivy and out-of-luck locals, the lot of them thick as the bricks on which they'd urinate their names. As Dory squatted, a huge egg (or something) fell from the wall, crashed like the market and was one hundred pieces of bright silver. There was no yolk, just Dory yanking my arm and twenty or so drunks saying I should fix this. Being deft with puzzles, I spent the black and white night assembling what turned out to be the Hope diamond (or something). I know important when I see it so I released Dory, collared the big, silver egg and drug it off to the Palace of Albuquerque where the guards, then quite willing to walk a dog, bowed and the King was summoned. As it turned out, all of his men were not needed and before long I knelt while His Majesty touched each of my shoulders with a sword as rose petals flew from the stands and the band struck up a melodic rendition of Along The Watchtower. I was the Knight even as the night fled with Dory, away with my short-order fame and my light yellow blanket. I rose in the bed of my El Camino and called to the New Mexico sky here, girl.

The rest was pretty much the same.

[Brenda Rose]

Originally posted by Tony Smith
On the first night of summer I became famous in the desert when I was enlisted by lottery to escort the King's dog - a wretch of a mutt named Dory which no Grenadier, butler, or servant would approach - to the business end of the park.. We stood together by a wall overrun with ivy and out-of-luck locals, the lot of them thick as the bricks on which they'd urinate their names. As Dory squatted, a huge egg (or something) fell from the wall, crashed like the market and was one hundred pieces of bright silver. There was no yolk, just Dory yanking my arm and twenty or so drunks saying I should fix this. Being deft with puzzles, I spent the black and white night assembling what turned out to be the Hope diamond (or something). I know important when I see it so I released Dory, collared the big, silver egg and drug it off to the Palace of Albuquerque where the guards, then quite willing to walk a dog, bowed and the King was summoned. As it turned out, all of his men were not needed and before long I knelt while His Majesty touched each of my shoulders with a sword as rose petals flew from the stands and the band struck up a melodic rendition of Along The Watchtower. I was the Knight even as the night fled with Dory, away with my short-order fame and my light yellow blanket. I rose in the bed of my El Camino and called to the New Mexico sky Here, girl.

The rest was pretty much the same.

:rolleyes: (And I thought I heard everything last night when he told me the dish ran away with the spoon.)

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by Brenda Rose
:rolleyes: (And I thought I heard everything last night when he told me the dish ran away with the spoon.)

Here, girl.

[David Bowers]

I've spent my summer - drum-roll - working like a dog, as the song says. And, in the vague spaces between shifts, I've been getting drunk enough to sleep through till the next one.

Dave.
And yes, I hate all of you. Deeply.

[earthshoes]

As I look back on it, I think most of my summer consisted of just surviving---the heat, financial straits, the heat, car problems, the heat, kids with nothing to do, and, oh yeah, the heat.

Okay, that's not entirely true. I lost fifteen pounds (walking a couple miles more everyday, watching what I eat, spending considerably less time in front of the computer), lead music for Vacation Bible School, sang with the church worship team, edited my first book (with tons of help from a couple of on-line friends--you know who you are and thank you), worked on the sequel, read a lot of poetry and threw away lots of attempts to write poety. I spent a lot of time with my kids, my dogs and my cats. The list is a bit longer than that, but that gets the top-ten activities.

I have to admit, Kim, that while Europe can wait (for a long time on my budget), I am terribly jealous of your trip to see the whales. That is my one abiding wish. If you took any pictures you should post them.

What a great summer you had.

[pc]

I worried that my car wouldn't make it through the summer.

Then I watched the entire Tour de France on the Outdoor Life Network. The OLN slogan is "Out you go!" Yeah.

I was kicked in the shin by a latino gentleman. In fact, I was brutalized, but you should have seen his shin.

What else?

I received notice from a previous employer that I had been overpaid.

I found a twenty dollar bill at the gas station.

I lusted in my heart for breasts and buttocks.

[Marcus P]

Summer?
Oh, yeah, out there.
Ho hum, back to work.

[gecian]

Reading; some travel, incl. a three-day safari in a game reserve; several unsuccessful attempts to write and improve my chess; misc. glaucoma stuff ... in short, an absolute waste. But I have five more days to make up for all that.

[cookala]

Going to the beach in between the blasted weeks of rain.
Going to the WCU Poetry Conference and taking classes with Tim Steele and Dana Gioia, plus meeting many other noted and as yet unknown poets.
Being inundated with new projects and pc viruses at work, driving to Albany for training three times. (enough already!)
Reading lots and lots and lots of poetry books.

cookala
it's been a quiet summer

[Kim]

Dave -- If it's any consolation, we played your "Best Of" cd in the car at stun volume most of the way through Ohio and sang along in really tuneless voices.

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues . . .

Mary -- I took tons of pics while whale watching, but I don't have a scanner. The humpbacks were so impressive, and sooooo close to the boat -- not more than 30 feet away at one point. I was gobsmacked. Let's pretend I took this picture (http://www.dolphinexcursions.com/images/research-humpback.jpg); it's pretty close to what I saw.

Gecian -- A safari?! Lucky dog. Cameras and not rifles, I hope.

Kim

[MSPav]

Taking photos and trying unsuccessfully to sleep. I'm going to Europe tomorrow to take more photos and further attempt to sleep.

[Rik Roots]

I got a promotion at work. Start the new job in September. Told my other half, who's already spent the extra money. Oh, well ...

[willow213]

1. Got dumped in the early summer
2. Wrote bad poetry about #1
3. Worked, and continued classes in grad school.

Yay.

Well, it really wasn't as bad as it seemed. No man in my life left me more time for friends and PFFA in between work and class.

:rolleyes: Willow

P.S. Hey, Kim, your summer sounded great! I loved the story of the balloon ride!

[gecian]

Gecian -- A safari?! Lucky dog. Cameras and not rifles, I hope.

Mostly binoculars, in fact. Cameras are a distraction, and the chic way to hunt is with a Masai spear (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3139181.stm). Still, I did take a few photographs.

[antidora]

What vacation?
Temperatures in the high 90s, lower 100s F; corn to harvest, peaches to pick, now the grapes are maturing.
Offspring home, with friends and fiancès.
Ukranian children guests for a month of sun and sea.
An abandoned pointer puppy picked up on the autostrada will only sleep if my bedroom door is open, and wants to be let out at 4 am.
School starts on September 1st.
Help!
antidora

[Michael Collins]

Left Australian winter for Europe; London for four days, did the Thames on a ferry, saw St Pauls and God knows hom many churches and old buildings. Busked in Covent Garden on a Djembe with a serious Gambian called Baddy-- made 60 pound in two and a half hours. Prague next up, though only for two nights (mostly spent looking for hostel accomodation), before off to Pacov, a little village where no one speaks english, and the beer is about eighty cents a pint, riding bikes through forest trails, pulling over for a quick skinny dip in what I can only describe as a really really large pond. I thought I was somewhere in Scandinavia. Then on to Cesky Krumlov, an old medieval town where time seems to stand still. Tubing down the river Vltava, a bit of canoeing. Supposed to be there for four days and ended up there for two weeks. When I finally managed to tear myself away, I headed off to Krakow. I was supposed to be here for about three to four days, and I think I'm riding on about seven weeks. Oh dear. Apart from a trip up to the Tatra mountains, and another quick trip up to warsaw to see a mate, and of course, Auschwitz, I haven't bloody left. You know what was one of the most disturbing things about Auschwitz? The fucking tourists. People taking shots of each other, in front of the exhibits of hair or shoes, like they were in some effing theme park. Yeah, horrible place. Didn't make it to/didn't want to make it to Birkenau. That's my summer. Lots of duze piwo and wodka i sok grejpfrutowym. Krakow rocks. And the women, the women...

Kim, sounds like you had a great time, esp seeing the whales. Apparently my snoring sounds somewhat like the noise a sperm whale makes, at least that's what a girl at my last hostel said.

Mike

[foxress]

Hello everyone,

We spent a week-end in Monterey, then two weeks back east (Cape Cod and Vermont) visiting our extended families. We've determined that while his family is loud and obnoxious, my family is cold and bitter. So, I suppose that our own nuclear family will be some combination, like cold and obnoxious or loud and bitter. Then last week-end we went to Napa. (my first time there) And I loved it!!! 50 different types of soil, countless french forests...each one adding to the complexity of the flavor through the oak. One winery had a poster that said, "Wine is bottled poetry." I think I agree. There are so many variables that go into making it. There is such a variety, some of it good, some of it bad. But it's all interesting to explore. Glad to be back. Hope to be posting soon.

[jsdealy]

1. Landscaping (cutting grass and weed-eating)
2. ..

- Justin