Monday, August 03, 2009

Summer FAIL

Am I still going on about this rotten summer? Yes, yes I am. This summer is apparently the worst (most rain, least sun, coolest weather, rottenest weekends) since 1992.

1992? That was the summer I graduated high school. My last summer in the parental bosom, free to host weekend patio parties and loll around with my friends. BBQ's and bikinis at the cottage, all the cottages, days at the beach eating Ruffle chips and drinking Diet Pepsi before heading off the my new life as a university student (and hardcore Goth) in the Big Smoke where I didn't eat much of anything or seek out the sun, ever.

Ha. The rottenest summer on record.

Didn't really matter, as I was working like crazy at my summer job, vampire night-shifts at a group home for developmentally handicapped adults, shifts that turned me completely nocturnal so that if there were beach trips, I would've slept through them anyways.

We did go to Lollapalooza, though. I remember burning my nose so bad in the infernal, eternal lineup to get into Molson Park that it blistered and oozed. I wore that concernt tee for years and years, though. The summer of 1992, my first goth boyfriend, the high-drama of our still-new four year romance of black lipstick and leather pants, the summer of the nose piercing, a full neck of hickeys that my mom studiously ignored as she met me at the bus station, to drive me to my grandparents' for dinner. Oh, the folly of 19. Falling asleep at 10am, listening to The Cure: "Wish" is a good album to drift off to, if you're working nights and going to bed with the dew.

Rotten summers, then and now.

I told Munchkin this morning I needed to find a sweater. God damn it, I was cold in just my teeshirt and undershirt. She offered to help me find it, and pulled up my grey wool-and-angora cardigan. "This one, Mom?" she asked me, "Your beach sweater?"

Yes, Munchkin. That one. My 'beach sweater.'

Poor kid. This weather is warping her childhood, and pulling me back too insistently to rotten summers long gone and, I thought, forgotten.

10 comments:

cinnamon gurl said...

Hey, I went to Lollapalooza in 92 too! My first real concert, at the tender age of 15. I think I still have the scraps of t-shirt too.

But my rainy memories of 1992 was all the wet horse shows I went to. Practically every weekend I went to a horse show, and I remember that there was really only one or two horse shows where I didn't get soaked.

Melanie D. said...

And now, when it's back to school time in a short while (and now, if you live here!) it will be hotter than blazes. Just in time.

alejna said...

Beach sweater. Heh.

I'm in complete denial that it is August now. I think it's because I spent the whole month of July waiting for June.

Of course, summer has arrived here, and now I'm complaining about the mugginess. There's no pleasing me.

I did enjoy reading the reference to your "black lipstick and leather pants" romance though.

Patti said...

Summer 1992 - we were newlyweds in a university town where all our friends went home for the summer. Broke, living in a building where someone kept setting fire to garbage in the halls. Spike's mother had died unexpectedly right after we got married, and we didn't know it yet, but we were about to head into the fall, during which he would have a brain aneurism.

!!

Good times, haha.

Kyla said...

In '92, I was 9 years old.

It is so freaking hot here, I'd gladly swap with you. It is consistently 100 degrees, 115 or 120 with the heat index. UGH!

Bea said...

The summer of 1992 I was working for a local baseball team. Not only was it cold and rainy, but the rain always came on the weekend. We had maybe one sunny weekend the whole summer. When I wasn't working, I was planning my first wedding, while my fiance had what proved to be a prescient crisis about the wisdom of getting married so young, and to me. Should've taken it a bit more seriously, that sign of things to come.

hoppytoddle said...

That was my first summer in college, between freshman & sophomore years, but that goes back to the whole "I was skipped ahead" discussion.

Just had to share that I recently had to take a stab at explaining why sex is violent to our 4yo. Not an easy one.

Cloud said...

I have a feeling that a San Diegan probably shouldn't comment on this one... but I'm going to anyway! I won't say anything about my current weather, though.

The summer between high school and college ('90 for me) was the summer that Phoenix, AZ hit a record high of 123 degrees F. They had to shut the airport, because the tarmac was too squishy or something like that.

And I was working at a movie theater, in a black polyester uniform. I thought my pants might melt onto my legs.

Debbie said...

Summer of '92 was apparently not worth remembering for me. I think I was working at the ice cream store. I think. I know it was between grades 11 & 12. And I had a car. Actually, that was pretty memorable.

It's 10C with rain today. Rain all week. Yay.

Run ANC said...

A question I've always wanted to ask of goth-clothing wearers: Isn't it mighty hot in the summer? How do you bear it??