Bye Bye Summer

I had four glorious days free of my natural light-less, stress headache-inducing office. The days were busy, but mostly unproductive. And in the spirit of unproductivity, I’m going to tell you all about it:

Friday
When I was moving to Austin, Amanda imparted one of the most useful big sister tips of my college career: go to the mall in the middle of the day. There are many reasons that I came to love mid-week, daytime mall visits –- for example, you exponentially increase your chances of encountering mall walkers and helpful employees. Mall walkers rock my world.

I public-transportationed-it to the very unremarkable mall in Jersey City. I perused the Macy’s shoe department with a slowness known only to the first day of a four day weekend. The salesperson watched me in semi-disgust as I heaped an obnoxious number of display shoes into my arms. My final selection was an overpriced, uber-cool pair of peep toe wedges that I rationalized trying on just for fun. As expected, “just for fun” turned into “put it on my card.” Don’t get me wrong –- they weren’t THAT expensive. It’s just that my footwear purchases are generally limited to the sales rack at DSW. Did I mention how much I love these shoes?

One quick NJ-light rail ride back to Hoboken brought me back to my frugal reality. I spent my afternoon doing everything one should avoid on a day off from work –- grocery shopping, laundry, cooking, and a trip to the gym. Sarah interrupted my state of domestic goddessness to see if I wanted to meet her and her sister Corey for dinner. I got sufficiently un-smelly and ended the night reminiscing about how nice Corey was to me when I was a lowly high school freshman.

Saturday
Football. Football. Football. Class at the gym. Shower. Football. Train into the City. Football. Football. Train home. Football overload.

Sunday
Corey, Sarah, Andrea and I celebrated the official end of summer with a finale trip to the Jersey shore. It was a bit packed with over-tattooed, hyper-tanned meatheads for my taste, but the weather was gorgeous and the water was warm-ish. I think I finally mastered the art of sunscreen application because I escaped without any weird red blotches. Hopefully I will retain that skill for summer ’09. The beach was followed by church, Mad Men, and the pure glee of it being the eve of another day off work.

Monday
I felt victorious that I had mostly avoided real clothes all weekend. I thought I would continue the streak and agreed to go with Jesse to her family’s swim club. Swim clubs are a totally weird northerner thing. They are kind of like joining a country club, but all you get is a neighborhood pool. Andrea drove us to Jesse’s hometown about 30 minutes from Hoboken. While Jesse and Andrea debated the superiority of North vs. South Jersey, I daydreamed of Sugar Land (which I am certain would win over the entire state of NJ any day of the week). I read most of a book, witnessed Jesse’s famous back dive, and lounged around the pool with a least 20 potbellied old guys that I swear were straight off a Sopranos' set.

Now it's back to the reality of 5:30AM alarms and pants without elastic waists. My holiday is officially over.