Dawg Days of Summer

July 5.  Vacation’s over, and it’s time to return to the real world.

Well, almost.  Jet lag is still kickin’ in a bit so there’s a need to keep moving in the evening because the minute we sit down we tend to fall asleep.

Like about 7:00 in the evening.

And that wouldn’t be such a big deal, except that it leads to waking up even earlier than we normally do.

Like about 11:30 in the evening. 

You see the circle.  Eventually we’re going to be getting up when other people haven’t even gone to bed yet.  At some point, either we or the world is going to be out of sync for an entire day.  That can’t be good.

Add to that the fact that it’s hot.  Not just “warmish” or even “a might uncomfortable.”  It’s HOT. 

As in record-breaking, triple-digit, too-hot-to-wear-many-clothes hot that makes you feel like you need a shower from the second you walk out the door in the morning and keeps you inside close to the air conditioning wishing you’d bought stock in Duke Power in the afternoon.

Too hot to either cook OR light the grill.

There has to be a good reason to go out.  Today it was the need to stay awake, and to do that we decided to engage in that age-old summertime ritual and take the kids for ice cream.

The fuzzy kids, that is.  The others all have drivers’ licenses.  They can get their own ice cream.

We didn’t realize that it’s Thursday night, which means that there’s a “rod run” at the old Dairy Queen, the one that we patronize over by the concrete plant.

Complete with Elvis singing on the sidewalk out front.  

There’s no inside seating.

No seating at all, in fact, unless you bring a lawn chair or stay in your car.

Just as we were leaving the house, EM came along and joined us. After all, everyone likes ice cream.

So we joined the show in the parking lot at the DQ, with the boys getting theirs first (they split a small cone in a cup usually), and after they’d eaten theirs the adults got to enjoy their treats.

One of the advantages of doing it this way is we get to learn exactly how long the dog's tongue is.  This is useful, because they'll want to share ours even though they already had theirs.

While that was happening, the manager came out to visit with us.  At first I thought she was going to tell us that dogs weren’t allowed.

That rarely happens, although it has a couple of times – CVS, Target and Best Buy apparently have rules, but c'mon!  We were in the parking lot!

She actually was just coming out to tell us about their “Dog Days of Summer” special.

It seems if your furry four-legged friend brings you on Tuesdays, they get a free “pup cup” if their human makes a purchase.

And free ice cream is almost as sweet as a snitched melon.  So I suspect we’ll be going back on Tuesdays for a while.

Because it looks like it’s going to be a long, hot summer.