Days Of Summer

THE WANING DAYS of summer have a special feel in our neighborhood. The dads (and many moms) who awaken to rude alarms at 5: 30 a.m. for the commute to the distant city first notice that it is no longer daylight at this "break of day" time, and the birds are not serenading the neighborhood before the coffee-makers and showers commence.By the time people dash to their cars and head for work, the sun is up but the shadows are growing longer, and they suddenly realize that those late fall days of having to work "dark to dark" are rapidly approaching.

For those long car trips, rainy days at the cabin, or lazy August afternoons by the pool, there's nothing that cheers a bored child like a bit of creative crafting.This summer, parents can't go wrong if they pack lots of round pony beads and ribbon into their suitcases, beach bags and totes. This summer's hottest craft is the Beady Buddy or Beady Baby, a little creature made by threading beads onto ribbons.Boys and girls of all ages love to collect the beads ` which can shimmer, glitter or glow in the dark ` and store them in the compartments of plastic embroidery-floss cases.

They've already spent their last day at the pool. They've stayed up until the wee hours for the last night, slept until noon for the last morning.And yesterday, they went to their last baseball game.The kids in Camden Yards were, as you can imagine, excited and eager to return to the wonderful world of books and learning, teachers and report cards."Yuck," Daniel Levere, 10, says."Uck, headache," Adam Aronow, 8, says."I'm going to laugh and get straight Fs," Curtis Swauger, 8, promises.Perhaps the only happy student in the stands yesterday was George Balobalo, 8 ("and a half")

Hello, snow. Goodbye, summer.Thanks to the double-whammy of a blizzard Sunday and more snow yesterday, area schools remain closed -- and most are chipping away at summer vacation to make up for lost time.In Baltimore City and the five surrounding counties, officials had planned for two to four days of inclement weather.In hindsight, they now say, most gambled and lost. Some had even used up their scheduled snow days well before the blizzard's arrival.Anne Arundel County is one place where summer vacation remains intact -- and it is threatened there.

As day broke over Baltimore yesterday, city streets were wind-swept, dark and wet. From morning rush hour till well after lunch, people walked with heads down, sidestepping puddles. Women held tight to their skirts and umbrellas were raised against skies washed a chilly gray.This is what passes for the dog days of summer this summer.Tomatoes are more green than red, utility companies have yet to beg the public to conserve energy, and while temperatures have been pleasant compared to the typical August oven, it sure is weird.

Sylvia Badger is on vacation. Her column returns next week.The lazy days of summer are just around the corner. But for some party planners, summer means picnics and crab feasts. If your organization is planning a fund-raising picnic, an awards dinner or some other benefit during July, August and September, we'd like to know.Please send an announcement with a contact name and phone number to Sylvia Badger, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, Md. 21278 or fax her at (410) 783-2519. Deadline is June 20.

Last Thursday morning, as the sun was rising and the moon well toward set, rockfish from 15 to 22 inches and a scattering of smallish bluefish were breaking along the deep edge of a point off the western shore below the Bay Bridge.A handful of private boats had found the schools and fewer than a dozen anglers were casting beneath the gulls that swooped to feed on scraps of baitfish left by the feeding predators.And for a while, the fishing was fast. But as it happened, the tide was close to flood and within an hour the feeding fish had broken off.Soon afterward, the fishermen had dispersed, all before 8 a.m. -- and all before the heat came into the day.Mornings and evenings, when the tide is running and the heat of the day is relatively low, are the best times of summer for fishing Chesapeake Bay.Not only are the fish more likely to be more active when the day is dim, but fishermen can safely be more active, too.We have entered the dog days of summer, when high temperatures and high humidity can produce heat indexes that make outdoor activities arduous for many and dangerous for those with respiratory and heart problems.

Ah, the waning days of summer. The last few precious weeks before school is once again in session.You'd think this would be a great time for a kid. There's still a chance to squeeze in a couple more summer memories. Maybe even have an adventure or two worth mentioning in the required essay on how I spent my summer vacation.Alas, these last two weeks before school begins have become known around my house as the whining days of summer.My offspring are tired of each other, bored with their friends and would swear that we haven't been anywhere or done anything the entire summer.

This is probably a good time to take a parent sanity check, as children have been home from school for about a month enjoying summer vacation.Typically, a parent can gauge how far into the summer it is by the odometer of the family vehicle. If it has racked up a couple zillion miles, you know that you've made it halfway to the time when the school bell dings.Of course, there is another measurement -- my favorite -- which is the number of times the little cherubs exclaim, "I'm bored, I don't have anything to do."

It won't be too much longer before the last school bell rings and school children of all ages adjourn from their classrooms for the summer.Yes, this is when parents stop just long enough to catch their breath and prepare ever so quickly to coordinate swimming, baseball, sports camp and the frequent trips to the local shopping mall.Ah, yes, summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime!I, for one, have made a commitment to provide my children with a different regimen of activities this summer.

The lazy days of summer are soon giving way to the busy bees of fall. In that spirit, let's pause to catch up on some travel news that you may have missed in between days at the shore. New magazine. The bimonthly magazine Afar launches this month with a focus on travelers who are looking for meaning and authenticity. More info at afar.com. Boston or bust. Southwest last week began flights to Boston from BWI-Marshall Airport. It joins AirTran and next month, JetBlue comes aboard. In the face of increasing competition, Delta discontinued its nonstop flights from BWI to Boston last week.

(500) Days of Summer: *** ( 3 STARS) The opening insists this movie is not a love story, and maybe that's right. Maybe it's more about timing than love. But that time-worn emotion, not to mention maturity, grace and wonder, all play key roles in this engaging variation on the relationship film, featuring finely nuanced performances from Joseph Gordon-Levitt (whose character, Tom, is ready for a relationship) and Zooey Deschanel (whose character, Summer, isn't). OK, it's too cute at times, and the ending is a bit of a feel-good sellout, but much of the movie (including the year's best musical number)

The hero of (500) Days of Summer, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), works at a greeting-card company, where he's a whiz at creating slogans such as "I Love Us." He's given up on his professional dream of becoming an architect but not on his dream of finding true love - and he reckons he's lucked into it when his boss hires a comely, quizzical assistant named Summer (Zooey Deschanel). She likes Tom, she really likes him. But she doesn't believe in love at first sight, or even second or third sight.

Good morning -- Michael Vick -- Are you glad that the dog days of summer are almost over?

For the life of him, Danny Hunt, 13, couldn't figure out what was going wrong. All morning, he had done flips from a swing hanging 20 feet over a pool at the Beaver Dam Swimming Club, but as the day wore on, the eighth-grader's luck turned bad and his stomach was paying the price. "I'd been doing back flips easily, but now I can't do it," Danny said yesterday. "Now I've just been belly flopping." Undeterred, Danny, along with 11 of his closest friends from Rosa Parks Middle School in Olney, hit the swing again, keeping with their quest to make the final Friday of summer vacation the grandest day of them all. Nathan Craft, 13, said despite the hourlong car ride to get to the pool, "it's the best way to end the summer."

The sweltering days of summer are upon us and a whopping 334 million Americans are taking off on vacation, headed toward destinations fun, faraway and fantastic. Maybe they're sipping drinks with umbrellas on a sandy white beach. Maybe they're camping in the cool Rocky Mountains. Then there's you, stuck in Baltimore. Stuck to wander the steamy, grimy city streets while your friends and family are off swimming, hiking, biking somewhere not here. For whatever reason - a tight budget, never-ending home renovations, vacation hours drained - you're nowhere but here, hon. But don't leap off the Bromo Seltzer tower just yet. With a little bit of creativity and flair, you can turn Baltimore into your own vacation resort.

It's billed as "the 11 best days of summer." But who's to say the Maryland State Fair's slogan is anything more than advertising hype? The 121st fair - which begins tomorrow in Timonium and runs through Sept. 2 - offers agricultural displays, home arts, musical entertainment, thrill rides, all sorts of competitions and delectable food. The fair showcases traditions that reach back to its inception, such as the livestock shows and horse racing, as well as more modern events, including the NASA robotics competition and one of this year's new features, the Xtreme Air Stunt Show.

IN A REFRESHING show of bipartisanship, the Maryland House of Delegates this week overwhelmingly voted to make it legal for a kid to buy an ice cream cone, walk outside and eat it. Same goes for an adult. This isn't legislation that changes life as we know it, but it's worth applauding nonetheless. Apparently, under current state law, "frozen desserts" must be sold by fluid volume, except for ice cream when it is sold "for immediate consumption on the premises." So customers have the choice of either ordering their ice cream by the ounce or the pint (or, for the less disciplined among us, the gallon)

THE WANING DAYS of summer have a special feel in our neighborhood. The dads (and many moms) who awaken to rude alarms at 5: 30 a.m. for the commute to the distant city first notice that it is no longer daylight at this "break of day" time, and the birds are not serenading the neighborhood before the coffee-makers and showers commence.By the time people dash to their cars and head for work, the sun is up but the shadows are growing longer, and they suddenly realize that those late fall days of having to work "dark to dark" are rapidly approaching.

For those long car trips, rainy days at the cabin, or lazy August afternoons by the pool, there's nothing that cheers a bored child like a bit of creative crafting.This summer, parents can't go wrong if they pack lots of round pony beads and ribbon into their suitcases, beach bags and totes. This summer's hottest craft is the Beady Buddy or Beady Baby, a little creature made by threading beads onto ribbons.Boys and girls of all ages love to collect the beads ` which can shimmer, glitter or glow in the dark ` and store them in the compartments of plastic embroidery-floss cases.