August's GUILTY PLEASURES

Focus On Relaxation

Quick! Summer is slipping away. Only a handful of days left to enjoy August's guilty pleasures.

Just to make sure you don't have any regrets when Labor Day arrives, we want to share our favorite indulgences, the ones we might not want to admit to.

No, there's not a lot of sex and chocolate on our list. This hot, drowsy month is our last chance to celebrate summer, speak to the child within, and goof off before we have to act like grownups again. Besides, chocolate melts too easily in August.

So go ahead. Indulge yourself .

1. Listening to Neil Diamond's Hot August Night album and buying tickets for his concert in September

2. Thrashers French fries

3. Catching fireflies

4. Not caring what you look like when you go to the supermarket

5. Pouring heavy cream over sliced peaches or swirling it into iced coffee

6. Spending more time by the side of the pool than your dermatologist would approve of

7. Getting your belly button pierced in Ocean City

8. Watching the Weather Channel tropical storm update

9. Wearing a bikini anyway

10. Spitting watermelon seeds

11. Reading Madonna: An Intimate Biography by J. Randy Taraborrelli

12. Visiting the Ravens training camp at Western Maryland College. (Pictured below, wide receiver Adrian Burnette.)

13. Slowing down when you should be speeding up

14.Buying a Storm 600 Water Gun (dual pumping action)

15. Ambushing your kid with your new water gun

16. Coming in late because your boss is on vacation

17. Leaving early

18. County fairs

19. Whack-a-Mole

20. Grape Popsicles

21. Painting your toenails sky blue

22. Not going to your psychoanalyst

23. Lingering over lunch at an outdoor cafe when you should be working

24. Wearing the same pair of shorts for days

25. Eating too many tomatoes

26. Cruising around

27. Having a milkshake because you haven't had one all summer

28. Watching 11 consecutive hours of Witchblade when TNT airs all the episodes back-to-back Aug. 26

29. Turning up the air conditioning in spite of the energy crisis

30. Swimsuit shopping when you don't really need one just because there's an end-of-season sale

31. Redefining casual Fridays

32. Staying up too late in the last of the warm summer nights

33. Reading the comics before you read the international news

34. Cotton candy

35. Calling in sick and going to a matinee of American Pie 2

36. Chocolate snowballs with marshmallow

37. Back-to-school splurging -- er, shopping

38. Playing a round of miniature golf by yourself

39. Mixing up a pitcher of sangria

40. Wearing flip-flops when you should be wearing shoes

41. Going barefoot when you should be wearing shoes

42. Having ear after ear of sweet corn for dinner and nothing else

43. Tortilla chips and salsa

44. Pink lemonade with a maraschino cherry in it

45. Lingering in front of the open fridge

46. Letting the phone ring

47. Driving with the windows down and the stereo up

48. Putting an ice cube down a friend's back on a sticky August afternoon

49. Going to Camden Yards and not watching the game

50. Seeing Lara Croft: Tomb Raider for a second time

51. Going to New York City and visiting all the hot new places while New Yorkers are on vacation

52. Swimming under an August moon

53. Sunbathing nude in your backyard

54. Paying $19.95 to watch Big Brother 2 live online (25,000 people already have)

55. Ordering a second scoop of Pralines 'n Cream on your ice cream cone

56. Going out for steamed crabs when they cost more than prime rib

57. Not jogging because it's too hot

58. Not swimming because it's too much work

59. Water parks

60. Doing Hedwig songs at a karaoke bar

61. Letting your garden go to weed

62. Using your work computer to rate movies on netflix.com because you just don't feel like working

63. Getting a henna tattoo

64. Taking a last hurrah at the beach when the rental rates go down at the end of the month

65. Wasting the last week of summer watching grown men and women chase a little yellow ball in the early rounds of the U.S. Open

66. Starting Labor Day weekend a little early