Weekend Plans Post: The New Schedule
When I was a little kid (like, around 8), my parents were both high school teachers. This meant that come the end of the school year, hurray! We could all do stuff together! Go swimming! Ride bikes! Run down to the crick and get a bucket full of tadpoles! Go to Cedar Point! Walk around and not be able to believe that the sun is STILL setting into Lake Michigan because, jeez louise, we want to get this campfire going! And then, at the end of summer, watch the grownups heave big sighs and get ready to go back to work as we got ready to go back to school.
Well, what happens to you at that age feels universal and so it was always surprising when it sunk in that my friends didn’t do fun stuff all summer because, of course, their parents were working all summer. Sure, they had a 3-day weekend here or there. Maybe even took a week off… but it wasn’t ALL SUMMER.
Now I am a grownup. And I work ALL SUMMER. Sure, maybe I get a 3-day weekend here or there… maybe even take a week off… but, dang.
I have a friend who works at the local elementary school. She gets off all summer. I feel a great deal of envy when I go over to her house and she talks about her previous week.
Anyway, the schedule for Maribou changes from “working in the afternoons and evenings” to “working more or less the same schedule as Jaybird” in summertime. This means that all sorts of things that used to be one way are now another.
If I have to go to Costco on Friday night, it is no longer a utilitarian “get the three things on this list” trip but a “wander up and down the aisles and if we see an interesting type of felt-tip marker sold in rainbow packs of 28 colors, maybe we should throw that in the cart too” kinda trip.
Which brings me to the plans this weekend: we’re going to Costco together on Friday night and it’ll be the first Costco-kinda-date in months. Stop by the food stand and get some hot dogs or a Caesar or an ice cream sundae, wander through the aisles of 55-gallon drums of peanut butter, and boggle at the different kinds of baseball gloves that get sold in 3-packs now (infielders and outfielders have different gloves! Who knew?). Saturday night is devoted to the D&D group (and we’ll be picking up maybe an appetizer, maybe a dessert at Costco the night before). And Sunday will be spent running the little errands we didn’t get to on Friday or Saturday. A lovely little weekend with as much summer vacation as we can possibly pack into it.
I sometimes miss being 8.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Sunset over Lake Michigan” by ZJemptv. Used under a creative commons license.)
Since my wife works for the school system, she has her summer’s off as well. I find it is mostly a net positive. She likes to have an excuse to leave the house every day and actually requests a list of errands that she can undertake (I can even swap cars with her for the day and she’ll sit at the tire place happily reading a magazine while they try to figure out why my brakes are squeaking.) So it becomes a very productive time of year for the domestic side of our lives.
There’s also a casual atmosphere that takes over. I violate the work dresscode on a daily basis by wearing boat shoes if I don’t have to meet with anyone important and work feels like just a part of my day instead of the whole day because there is SO MUCH daylight left when I get off. On the downside, as my wife’s bedtime drifts later and later, I suddenly realize I am staying up later and later myself and the fatigue sets in. By August I am usually ready for her to go back because that provides some structure. Overall, I like the cadence of the year and it’s nice that summers still mean something, even with the kids out of the house.Report
I grew up in a small (25-30K) college town, with other faculty brats. So, for the most part, most of us had at least one parent who had summers off. I mean, my dad would teach a summer session every three years, but once he got tenure, it was on! Mom worked for the local school system for a while when I was really young, but soon moved over to do bookkeeping (gotta love those art history degrees.) So, yeah, I remember those days. But now, I work from home so I am the one out running errands all the time, at least the ones my wife doesn’t want to do. Which is fine.
As for this weekend? A friend moved into our little town surprisingly (wife ran into him at the farmers market one morning), so I will give him a call. Other than that, no idea.Report
My relationship to my parents when I was on Summer break was slightly different than yours. My Mom was a nurse, and then she was stay-at-home for the majority of the time between maybe 3rd and 7th grade, and my Dad worked HVAC so he was often gone before I even got out of bed. Parents during Summer break were creatures to be avoided as an encounter with them often meant an end to fun as some chore could get assigned. Now that I’m on the other side of the equation, I better understand the desire to see the kids “do something with themselves” during their long Summer break.
Women’s World Cut starts tonight with hosts France taking on South Korea–the US team doesn’t play until 11 June. Gaming Saturday, and we’ve got tickets to see Les Miserables on Sunday. Looking forward to this day being over as I feel completely beat to hell after climbing yesterday.Report
:%s/Cut/Cup/Report
It is 22:00 in O Pedrouzo Spain which is the last stop on our 115km Camimo pilgrimage. Tomorrow after a 20km hike we should find ourselves at the tomb of St. James (The Greater…the Zebedee boy)…God willing. Thereafter, the Compostela. We are nine ranging from 80 to my son at 4 (and a half, if you ask him). He’s quite the sensation on the Camino…the Spanish ladies call him “valiente peregrinito” and ask to take his picture – which he cheerfully obliges. I half expect to find his face on Spanish tourism sites in the near future.Report
Both my parents taught at university, so we also got those great summer vacations – we went camping a couple of weeks every year, and could visit people in other towns and whatnot.
Our schedule change isn’t for another could of weeks, add that’s when child the eldest is done school. The grown ups don’t really have semester dependant work schedules though so it’s not as big of a change as it might be.Report