Lazy hazy crazy days of summer

This summer has flown by.

Going to the ROC this weekend for Laura B's wedding -- we're about to see all of our closest friends from our formative years.



Then, two weeks later, some of my older friends and a few of my newer ones will converge for my own wedding on an island in Maine, surrounded by my new family.



It's like the present doesn't exist -- it's been supplanted by a twin sense of nostalgia and inevitability. To be caught between your past and your future...it's hard to know how to feel. It's exhilaration tinged by the slightest wisp of fear. But that's the best kind of exhilaration.

Since I'm such a nostalgia junkie, I plan on milking it this weekend and visiting all of my old haunts. Most of my readers, if they're still out there, know what these are:

-Empire Hots
-Linear Park
-Highland Park
-Durand Eastman Beach
-Monroe Ave.
-Gitzi's Hots
-Rubino's
-The 14th tee
-The end of the street
-The Barbetta's house
-Bobby Maville, wherever he is

Sara seems to share my need for a fix. Our first order of business back in the ROC is to visit Linear Park. There's nothing linear about it -- leave it to the engineering freaks of the Greater Rochester Area (and they are many) to name such a beautiful place after a drafting term. Lots of good times were had in Linear back in the day.

And of course all of the culinary delights native to that upstate wonderland -- Genny Cream Ale (that sweet, foamy nectar), Zweigles hots, Garbage Plates, the list goes on.

And of course we have to bring a bottle of something or other to the 14th tee at 1am, as per tradition, and roll down the hill. Or are we too old for that? Do I care?

It will be a confounding, exhilarating time.