Whether Labor Day was really the end of summer or not, it marks an even more important milestone: the return of this blog from summer break!
So what happened while I was away?
Mostly, it was hot outside. And it still is most places, especially if
But you know what month was even hotter?
JUNE
June was a momentous month for our country in that it provided writers everywhere the opportunity to write the word "momentous." Also, temperatures reached momentous heights in most of the country.
Nashville, for instance, hit 107. If you are thinking that "hit 107" should be the name of a radio station rather than a phrase used to describe the temperature, you might have a point. The temperature gauge should never go higher than the radio dial.
But in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave, a rare celestial event occurred: the path of Venus crossed the surface of the sun, a feat not scheduled to happen again for another 100 years. When it happened, astronomers everywhere were shocked that upon crossing the surface of the sun Venus decided this was actually preferable to being near the orbit of the Earth, and chose to linger for awhile. It said it would leave once it found a job, but it just bought a cat and things aren't looking good. It might just say until next century.
Everyone is struggling in this economy.
Speaking of which, the United States' economy continued to struggle in June, as millions of would-be employers decided to forgo interviewing prospective hires in favor of showing up to work without wearing pants. Little did they know, things would just get worse in:
JULY
July started on Independence Day, which happened to fall on July 4th this year. Cities across the country cancelled their traditional fireworks demonstrations this year, because no one quite remembered why they ever held them to start with. Also, it was so hot outside that both fireworks and humans carried a 50 percent chance of exploding upon 12 seconds of exposure to sunlight.
Temperatures in Nashville and elsewhere across the nation's heartland rose to 109 degrees and stayed there for roughly 412 straight days. Locally, Tennessee republicans attempted to egg Al Gore's house as a show of contempt, but all such eggs fully cooked while in flight and became spongy upon arrival, creating minimal mess. The Gores may, or may not, have enjoyed a lovely brunch, however.
Meanwhile, the economy improved slightly, as employers rushed to fill vacancies left when their former employees spontaneously combusted. These gains were largely offset by employees who chose termination of employment over venturing out into the oppressive heat, however.
This didn't make national news, but a llama was spotted in the Smoky Mountains. It was in the back of a truck, or at least the back of a trailer attached to one. The truck was parked in the parking lot near the entrance to a hiking trail at a remote back corner of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Also, the llama was spotted by the author of this column.
But the sighting was remarkable nonetheless.
The spotting of the Smoky Mountain Llama raises many questions. Where was the driver ultimately taking the llama, and why did the driver stop for a lovely mountain hike while transporting it?
Why was the llama left in the trailer? Wouldn't it have been helpful in navigating the hike?
The great irony is that the llama was in one of the few places in America where it could have been put to the use for which the species has for thousands of years been bred, and it was just sitting in the truck. Did its owner forget to pull him out, just as I left my hiking stick in the trunk?
Or was it that someone with a trailer attached to their truck coincidentally happened to capture and confine a wild llama, 3,000 miles from its home territory, in route to Saturday hike?
I still don't know the answer.
I do know that the Olympics started later in the month, but we'll talk more about that in:
AUGUST
In June and July, it was too hot to go outside, too hot to stay inside, and everyone was miserable. August was pretty much the same way, except that the Olympics were on.
Ratings for Olympic swimming drew all-time highs, partly because Americans anxiously awaited to see if returning champion Michael Phelps could fuel national pride by becoming the greatest and most decorated Olympian of all-time, but mainly because looking at the water made us feel two-percent cooler.
The Olympics consisted of a stunning number of other events that can best be described in one word: dumb.
I mean no disrespect by this term. Some of the more obscure Olympic events are, undoubtedly, really hard. I'm sure the participants would kick my tail if I could somehow figure out the rules and tried to compete against them. But the fact remains that about 1/3 of all Olympic events are really silly, and appear to have originated after their founders ingested large amounts of chemicals.
My favorite dumb Olympic sport is handball. It's a game where players on each team gather up a running start, fly into the air, crash into the other team's human wall of defenders, and try to hurl a ball into the other team's net in the process.
There's an episode of "The Simpsons" where the writers illustrate how dumb Homer and Bart are by having them gain a running start and crash into each other while wearing pots on their heads. After the collision, Homer announces: "that makes 22-16." Add a ball to the equation, and this, basically, is handball.
It looks really fun.
But the game is dumb, just like how my siblings and I used to have water-drinking contests. There's a skill, a technique, and an endurance to it, but it measures talents for which there is limited outside use, and no one comes by except in curious fashion. Synchronized swimming, water polo, and something called the "modern pentathlon" (consisting of five "modern" events, including such relevant-for-the-times components as fencing and steeplechase) also fell into this category, and don't even get me started on the "sport" where the horses compete to see which is the best dancer, but humans somehow win the medals.
It's called "dressage." Look it up.
Watching it all was great fun, and everyone was sad when it ended, because it meant we had to go outside again.
August brought us more than the Olympics, though. It also brought us Hurricane Isaac, which hovered over New Orleans on the 7-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and decided it liked the town enough to stay for an extra shrimp poboy and an order of beignets.
Isaac moved about as quickly as Mrs. Fletcher, the old woman in the Life Alert commercial who fell and then couldn't get up. It soaked the entire Gulf Coast in its wake, before eventually moving on the Mid-South and Midwest and doing the same things there.
All told, the enormous, slow-moving storm brought muggy tropical air and moisture to half the nation, which had been just on the verge of cooling down as summer drew to a close. It was exactly what everyone needed to remind them that summer is, in fact, miserable when one becomes an adult.
I, for one, am glad summer is finally over.
Let's not have another one for at least nine more months.
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