Summer Doldrums

Early August weekends are often the pits, particularly when I'm home.  I pretty much get by on 3 things when I'm home on the weekends: working in the yard, watching sports on TV, and eating.  Simple pleasures for a simple man.  It's tough in early August, though.  Here's why:

• It's too hot and muggy to work outside in the yard.  Technically, it's not even that bad today since it's "only" 80 degrees at 10AM.  But, I came back from my morning run soaking wet.  The vaseline I applied wore off by about mile 5; I'm paying the price for that right now.  After finally cooling down and taking a shower, the last thing I want to do is head back outside to prune, trim, and weed.  I know I'll just be soaked again within 15 minutes.
• Early August sports viewing on TV is a dead zone.
• Golf (particulary with Tiger still struggling) = yawn.
• Baseball (even Yankees vs. Red Sox) = nap.
• Is there anything else?
• It's even hard to get excited about what might be for dinner.  I really do spend a lot of my time thinking about what I'm going to eat at my next meal.  I guess that's the remnants of the cave man in my DNA.  Unfortunately, in early August, I'm just so lethargic that I don't even build up a real appetite.

Luckily, there are a couple of things that may get me through this weekend.

• We just ran through the schedule on the Big Ten Network and they're replaying the Penn State - Northwestern game from last season at 6PM today.  You remember -- Penn State rallies from 21 points down to get JoePa his 400th win.  That could be worth a shot.
• I can continue on my reading kick and plow through "Catching Fire."  I started it yesterday and quickly read almost 100 pages.  It's good.  I just love that Katniss Everdeen.
• Or, I could spend countless hours agonizing over whether to make any changes in our investment strategy given all the chaos in the markets and last night's credit downgrade.  That sounds like fun!  I think I'll start there.