Things I Learned This Summer

Poison ivy is very bad.

It hurts quite a lot. There are blisters. Do everything you can to avoid getting it. Expect to look as though you've been in a knife fight for weeks.

There is a direct correlation between the number of times your various loved ones end up in the hospital and the number and height of weeds in your yard.

Can we all just think about the flowers and the vegetables, just this once?

If you don't plant cucumbers, you get no cucumbers.

This should be obvious, and yet somehow I was surprised.

One day at the beach is not enough.

Again, file under "Obvious."

If you completely neglect the garden all summer, you will still end up with potatoes.

(Assuming you planted them, which we did.)

The Sudafed they sell on the shelf is nothing compared to the old-school version you have to sign for at the pharmacy counter.

It's worth getting put on the meth-cookers' watch list if you have bad respiratory issues and are trying to avoid bronchitis like me.

There's always next summer.