Why My Favorite Day of the Summer is Today

The day after Labor Day is always a good one when you live on the coast of Maine. This year it takes the cake.

Summer 2023 sucked - literally and figuratively.

A mean, late frost kicked off the season - followed by cold hard rain for 40 days and 40 nights. Armies of buzzing bugs had nothing else to do but bite people all day since spring flowers did not bloom or need attention.

Bug orgies went all night in the pools of standing water that were everywhere this summer.

Green Forsythias longing to be yellow sang the blues. Daffodils didn’t show up.

It was the summer of Shady Blue and company, too.

Imagine an exuberant black lab puppy so big and so strong she is the proverbial bull in your china shop - where this summer you happen to also host weekly guests mostly under age 5 or over age 85 and prone to being mauled by Shady’s love.

By accident Shady tackled me twice with the force of Trent Brown this summer - after my darling husband accidently crashed into me on his bike. My magnetism was rewarded with gigantic contusions of deep purples and reds. The bugs were tickled. Ace bandages and ice packs were regular accessories to a regular wardrobe of damp dog-walking threads, thrashed by Shady’s adorable excitement and sharp teeth and claws.

And don’t get me started about so-called hospitality this summer in Vacationland. It costs a hundred bucks for lunch. A basket of bread is a $5 side dish to a $39 dollar 6 ounce piece of fish with half a potato and cream sauce. Sparing flakes of parsley constitute a green vegetable. Tipping for nothing is de rigueur. Woke fees apply.

Why were there so many cars on the road? Doesn’t anyone work any more? Hello! Earth to tourists - do you care about climate?

Go back to school already! Go on, git!

Go back to Massachusetts and Connecticut and China. Take your stinky big bus and jacked-up pick up truck and shove it, please.

Not that summer was all bad. I read several excellent books in recovery in the rain and survived the Beach to Beacon 10K road race despite my injuries.

And there’s still time for summer to redeem itself.

Starting today. My favorite day of the year.