June 24th, 2009

Sweet summer slacking…

by Terri Libenson

Is there a term for a lazy blogger (lager??)? Well, that’s me. Guilty as charged. Part of it is because I’m writing about a strip which is about a woman who keeps a journal. Therefore, I’m blogging about a blogger. That wears me out psychologically.

The other excuse (at least, this month’s) is that I’ve got summer fever. In fact, I’m watching my kids play on our neighbor’s giant inflatable waterparkamathingamadoozy (an intricate series of water chutes and slides that costs more than all our furniture combined). They’re enjoying themselves, shouting, “Watch this, Mom!!” every 3.2 seconds as they hurl their lithe bodies on top of a dozen other lithe bodies (there are 15 kids total just within our four adjacent homes).

The shouting, fighting and pure glee makes me realize how as adults, we really do live vicariously through our kids. I have absolutely no urge to throw my half-naked self down a bouncy chute (although the image of all those bodies does weirdly make me think of ancient Grecian orgies)…yet, watching them experience this summer joy gives me such a “boring-adult” thrill.

Brings to mind a strip I did about 3 years ago. Our old neighbors had an inflatable bouncy castle they set up in their front yard. My kids would spy it as we pulled in our drive after a long day of preschool. This was the witching hour – that time of day the girls were tired and hungry…and so was I. I had to get home and start cooking. But all the kids wanted to do was raid the jumpy castle. My mistake was muttering, “Well, just for a few minutes.” Yeah, right. Enough said. Check out the product of that inspiration:

 

These days I’m thankful my girls are old enough to go on bouncy castles and watermathingies without constant supervision. I’m also thankful for portable laptops. And, of course, I’m thankful for the ability to relax and live vicariously through the young.

Peace out from one happy lager.