Cool Summer

It's been a cool summer by Northern Virginia standards.
I like it, in fact it is a summer of my childhood from the great white north.
I like cool vs 100% humidity and 100 degree August days..
BUT,  I fear another cold long winter because of this.

What normally begins to happen to my flowers in late August began the first week of August.

I pulled out some of my dying drying flowers and getting ready for my fall planting...in August.  This is so weird. Funny my neighbor asked how my flowers were doing. Great I said, because they were. 3 days later the petunias looked dreadful. 

This year I am buying long johns. I am not going to be cold all the darn time.
Since I must be out there walking a dog I must be warm.
I am never warm anymore so I will invest in long johns. I hear the news ones are thin and lightweight, so unlike when I wore them in the 70's.

When I was a kid it was a staple in my winter wardrobe. They were thick and clunky and made my clothes feel tight over top of them. I recall wearing them under overalls that I wore when I went skiing. Ah, skiing, something the young do.  Instead of being all caught up in the fashion of high end ski wear we wore denim overalls. We would be booed on fashion police today. We bought the overalls at the Army/Navy Store. Remember those stores?

With my health luck of late I'd be carried off the mountain by the ski patrol within the first 10 minutes. Instead now I would just skip the down hill and go right to the lodge for hot toddies.  I was fearless back then, today I am smarter and more fearful. 

At the class reunion we talked about our ski club. We were nuts.
We'd ride up the chair lift smoking pot and then ski down hill like crazy people. 
What idiots we were. 
Honest to Pete if I had kids that did what I did I'd kill 'em. 
Perhaps that is why I don't have children. I asked Mark, the bad boy of this group, what he would do if his sons did this. He laughed. His wife rolled her eyes.
Mr. Aerospace Engineer at Boeing said he would not want to find out and thankfully hasn't. 
He was the seller of this commodity back in the day. If his sons only knew!

I think it's funny that this motley crew of Cheech and Chong kids from the early 70's are all so called responsible people now. Gray hair and respectable positions in society. 
But even Cheech has become an art aficionado, several time jeopardy winner and respectable foodie/cook. (could have been the munchies that drove that last  one)

Do you think there is hope for the shallow vapid kardashians type youth of today?
There has to be, she says with hope .