Back to School

Summer snuck past us. Earlier this week Jo and I celebrated back to school with negronis and lunch at Uncle Nicky’s in Hyde Park. The photo isn’t an attempt at being artistic – I didn’t have my glasses on so I couldn’t tell what the portrait mode focused on.

Sometime this summer we went to Alu’s, leaving Ouiser with Carol in New Braunfels. Then Evan, Jo and I went to Sardinia while Alu and Michelle took Vivian over to RISD for her 5 week summer program. We met Praveen and Renuka in Sardinia and drove around the island, eating excellent seafood and sampling some beaches. Then we returned to Olbia in the north. There we joined up with Jen, Greg, and his two teenage boys and sailed around the Costa Smeralda in a 46 foot Lagoon with seven other boatloads of friends. It was a lot of fun expect the day when we battled 30 knot winds and ten foot seas.

On the way back, Evan got pulled up the security in Frankfurt airport for having “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” in his backpack. But they couldn’t find any dubious residues on the book so they let him go. Back in the US, Jo went to Utah where four of Carol’s siblings had a reunion. The week after Jo returned, I went to Alu’s and spent an excellent week hanging out. In the evenings I got dinner with Vivian who was less than an hour away in Providence. Then I got back to Austin and it was Evan and Jo’s turn to go back to Rhode Island. Vivian finished her course, and they went on a short college tour and met up with Vicky and Lily, and later with Cara and Eric. Finally, early in August we were all back at home – both cats, Ouiser, both kids, and Jo and I, basking in the 105 degree days. Then Evan’s soccer started up (he joined a new club), and the poor boy has played multiple tournaments in above 100 degree temperatures (in the shade – much hotter out there on the pitch). He started 8th grade and Vivian in a junior (holy cow), and Jo and I got ourselves a couple of negronis. And that was our summer in a nutshell.

Looking back at the photos I realize how much of a blur it all seems now. But we did slow down and savor life and make some good memories. Now it’s all school and car pool and soccer tournaments and work. And it’s still fucking 107 degrees in the shade in Austin.