Shandy Dandy
This week has been a big week for us. It’s the first week back from spring break, it’s the first week of spring, it’s my youngest son’s 3rd birthday (today!), and on Wednesday of this week I picked my mom up from the airport and surprised the kids with their first visit with her in over a year. They were shocked, and we’re all so excited to have her here. So far, every morning, they peek in before she wakes up to see if she’s really here. The love reading to her, and sharing iPad games with her, and just spending as much time as they can with her. The last year has been so difficult not being able to spend time with my family.
I grew up in New England, and my parents and sister still live there. There are many things that remind me of home that I couldn’t bring down south with me when I moved over 10 years ago, and I miss New England terribly. I miss my friends, my family, and seasons. In FL, we pretty much have hot and hotter, with a few days in Dec and Jan that qualify as sweater weather. I like FL fine enough, especially from Jan-March when it’s usually really beautiful outside and we don’t have to think about bundling up and shoveling snow. But I miss seasons - even shoveling.
I went to graduate school in, and fell in love with, Boston. The city is dripping with history, but is home to 35 colleges and universities and 152,000 college students. It’s a youthful city, and the people there like to have a good time. As a sports fan, living in Boston in the mid-2000s was an amazing time, and I spent a lot of time at bars and stadiums watching games. During the summer, Red Sox games were incredible. Walking in to Fenway is like walking in to history. The whole experience at Fenway is surreal, and
My dad introduced me to the Red Sox, and I can’t wait to bring my little sports maniacs to a game with him some day. As a kid, we would watch games at home, and in the heat of the summer, whether watching a game, or sitting in the sun on the dock at a lake house, he often enjoyed a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy. It has turned in to one of my favorite drinks, and even though it’s not a wine, it’s the wine of the week this week. It reminds me of summers in New England, and sunkissed skin with the quiet hum of far off people enjoying motorsports on a lake, and the lapping of gentle waves under the wooden planks of a dock nestled in to the trees on the shore.
I don’t have any of those things in Florida, but next week, my dad will be here. So I’ll have my mom and my dad with me, for the first time in a year, and I’ll pop open another shandy, and life will definitely be dandy.
