Waking up to warm weather, birds chirping and fresh air from the open window---ah it is summer time!
I remember as kids even during summer vacation we still woke up fairly early. The concept of sleeping in translated to less time swimming, playing outside and watching tv...aka time wasted (maybe that's why I still don't like the idea of naps). Nowadays sleeping in sounds great!
Although I must say, those summer days were jam packed with fun and they felt like they would never end. The day usually started with my brother and I having our mandatory 1 of 4 daily glasses milk. This of course was after we brushed our teeth, showered and did puja in the morning. Some days we found ourselves glued to the tv watching episode of Who's the Boss, I Love Lucy, Saved by the Bell (that was usually on early in the morning) and Mr. Bellvadere. There was also a fight over who got to hold onto the remote control and sit on the soft, comfy recliner. If Roshan and I were not plopped on it together we were fighting over who get's to claim the seat for any given duration. We came up with a way to "claim" the chair and remote. The rules were 1) If you got to the chair or the remote first you have the right to 'claim' it. 2) If you do not claim it and get up or leave the remote it is up for grabs. And by that I mean, the other person usually ran to it to grab it, no joke! So you wonder what do you mean by claim? So once you have possession of the chair and/or remote and you are ready to get up...to get water, go to the bathroom etc... all you had to say is..."Chair reserved with the remote". Then you are free to get up and do whatever you want and the other person can not take possession of it. If you forget to say it...see number 2 above. It worked like a charm :)! The sad thing is that "chair reserved with the remote" became a strong part of our vocabulary and normal language.
 |
| When I wake up in the morning...Saved by the Bell |
 |
| Who's the Boss |
 |
| Mr. Belvedere |
 |
| Classic... |
Other days we spent hours upon hours setting up toys and our stuff to play school school (I was the teacher), house house, store store or airplane (just one). We were so creative with each one. For school school we both had summer time "extra homework" assigned to us by the big bad principals (aka parents). So we would try to finish that and also do fake work so we had something to correct and mark up. We basically copied what we would see our teachers do with their fancy red pens...big X's, Smiley faces and all. There were also limited hall passes for the student (my brother) who didn't want to do work and instead wanted a bathroom break every 5 minutes. Airplane airplane was hilarious. We would set up chairs next to each other to simulate an airplane. Then we would take turns going to the kitchen to make cute snacks which we can pass out to the passenger. The best concoction was Ritz cracker with a cream cheese spread topped with fruit loops (or whatever cereal was available that week). It was yummy! Store store was time consuming. One of us would be the store keeper so we would close the shop, meaning we would close the room to the bedroom and setup. Once everything was set up with price tags, a wanna be conveyer belt and a register with Monopoly money the store would "open". The customer would come in and start shopping. The best part of course was ringing them up. The items would be placed on the Sit 'n Spin which was the conveyer belt and the store keeper got to cha-ching everything in and place it in bags. We would then swap roles and start all over.
On the hottest days we spent time outdoors. During the day it would be in the backyard and in the evenings, once our parents were home, it was in the front yard. In the backyard we would take tarp, place it on the grass and hose it down to create our very own slip 'n slide. The nice thing was unlike the actual product we got a lot more space because the tarps were huge! We learned this from our older cousin Sheila. The only real danger was if you didn't soak the tarp enough you would get tarp burn. Otherwise it was great!
Evenings were about going around and around the neighborhood either on our bikes or roller blades. All the neighborhood kids came out to play. On some days we would even play baseball with the red bat across our front lawn and the neighbors lawn and there were plenty of days playing H-O-R-S-E on the driveway. I remember even before we got our basketball hoop installed in our driveway we made our own. It was a bucket with a hole through it which we propped up somewhere high.
I would never trade in those summer days...not for the iPads of today, or the internet or for my 4GLTE phone. Kids today are missed out on those types of summer days. And of course as I now sit in my cube looking out the window...I realize huh...at least those kids still get summer vacation! WTH!
.JPG)
.jpg)
