It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

which can mean only one thing...

It's the first day of school.

Okay, so Geo and I weren't blessed with children of our own, but September still reminds me of the start of a new school term. I can tell you I still get a charge from this time of year. There's a palatable shift in energy. A clear change from the carefree shuffle of summer to the audible buzz of a time-to-get-off-your-ass-and-get-back-to-work attitude. Facilitating this change is the noticeably cooler nights, earlier sunsets and reduced production of mint for my beloved Mojitos.

What?! Daaaaaaaammit!

But most of all this time of year reminds me of my Mom (Big Mar), her best friend Pat and the greatest First-Day-of-School tradition EVER.

When we (and by "we" I mean the five of us kids) would come home from our first day of school, Big Mar would always be on the couch napping...sometimes with a cool cloth on her head. Kinda unusual because she normally would be in the kitchen preparing some kick-ass, mouth-watering, so-delicious-your-taste-buds-would-dance dinner causing you to salivate all over the new shirt you just HAD TO HAVE so you could be as cool as Jennifer who was oh-so pretty and always had the hippest threads which she wore every day for the entire first week making you feel square and insignificant even though you tried really REALLY hard to find the signature shirt of the season and now it has this big nasty purplish pool of a stain because you just HAD to eat a grape flavored freeze pop on the way home making your spit all pinky-purple, didn't you, Asswipe and now the frock is ruined and you'll be ridiculed for being relegated to last year's fashions and...

Wait...what was I talking about?

Oh yeah. So my Mom who's usually in the kitchen cooking or baking is sleeping on the couch. Weird. It wasn't until we were adults she fessed up that once she and Pat watched the last of their broods walk up the hill and out of sight, they'd bust open the highballs (that 60s constant cocktail) and celebrate their sweet release from the long, cruel summer of offspring overload. I should note here that my Mom, like many women of that era, was a stay-at-home Mom which meant dealing 24/7--by herself--with all the crap we kids could dish out from June 6th until D-Day in September.

So, yeah. Turns out Big Mar was sleeping off a bender when we got home.

Seriously. Don't you just love that? If we had kids I'd be sooo down with that ritual.

I'm happy to say that ceremony has been adopted by many a mother with whom I have shared the tale. They call it "Mimosa Monday".

To all the mothers reading this...feel free to follow in this time-honored tradition. And please, pass it on to any woman struggling for a reason not to murder her progeny by summer's end.

They're gone, BABY! Cheers!