les grandes vacances

In France during the month of August, everyone goes on vacation. Everyone. Summer vacation is a national past-time. Whatever you might say about the French, you have to admit that you are jealous of the way they can just stop working and do something else. It's not laziness. It's just the ability to work hard and then stop. You know, joie de vivre and all that. Here in the good ol' U.S. of A that's not so much the case. And it's really not the case here in NYC. People head in to work early and get off late. If you have children you either put them to bed at late hours, or never see them.

I'm sure you've heard about the wonderous, amazing, fantastical heatwave we've been experiencing here, along with the rest of the Northeastern portion of the country. Whoowhee! 101 in Central Park today! It's tough in the winter when it's too cold and icy to take the kids outside. But it is a million times worse when it looks nice and sunny outside (which it is sunny, and nice looking) and you have to try and explain to your cranky child that the park is a no-go because they may melt and evaporate away. In the winter you can have them run laps around the dinning room table to get the excess energy out. In this weather, you want to keep e v e r y o n e a s s t i l l a s p o s s i b l e (shhhhhh) because the air conditioners are already at maximum capacity just trying to keep the room 'cool' at 84 degrees and any movement in the house causes a 3 degree rise in temperature.

So really what I'm saying is that I think we should adopt August as our own national vacation month, since nobody really feels like doing anything right now anyway. Let's borrow the idea from the French and all come back in September.