vacation

i am back from vacation. my friend, kimberly, flew in from denver and we road-tripped it down to virginia to my family's summer house on smith mountain lake. except for a few outbursts from my father, the whole affair was very relaxing and very lovely--to be by the water, in a swimsuit, all lotioned up, listening to classic rock and cuban music. divine, really. i was a total rockstar on skis! however, i must also report that i've arrived back with the hell beat out of me. i burned my left ring finger on the oven rack one night, i fell getting out of the boat onto the dock and managed to bust both knees and put substantial bruises on both palms, and on the top of my left foot. (i've climbed in and out of that boat a million times in the last 25 years without as much as a scratch... well, i guess that was the second fall of the summer. the first was in a crosswalk back in june when i twisted my ankle in a pothole and went down in the middle of the street, so perhaps i'll get away with just two falls this season instead of the normal three i usually suffer. but i digress...) so i beat the bee-jezus out of myself getting out of the boat, then in my one skiing wipeout, which must have looked quite extraordinary from the boat, i fell forward and ran out of and over my skis but somehow managed to wallop myself in the head with one of them and hit the water hard enough to pull a muscle in my neck AND pull the ski belt against me in such a fashion as to leave a horizontal bruise about 6 inches long across my waistline. impressive, no? i bring a whole new meaning to "play hard." so that's it. i'm tan. and beat up. and there's just a week left in the summer of opportunity. get crackin', people!

time is waning

there is precious little time left in the Summer of Opportunity. it is mid-august, and that means two weeks until labor day. and although summer technically lasts a few weeks after that, the true summertime mentality of lazy days, vacation, plotting a few stolen hours in the sun or by the water, the laziness of a largely deserted washington, is replaced by the back-to-business buzz of september. so in case you didn't know, whereas July was all about TRADING UP, August has been the month to SEAL THE DEAL. and time is wasting. it is ticking by. whatever opportunity you started, whatever idea you've been trying to seize, whatever groundwork it is you've been laying, NOW, people, NOW is the time to be SEALING THE DEAL. romantic. professional. personal. financial. political. make your move! the summer of opportunity 2006 won't come around again. you will never again be the age you are now. you will never be in exactly this same place in your life. the gloves are off--get 'er done!