Busy, busy, busy. Is it really almost the end of summer? August is officially “Back-to-School” (just look in any retail store), and then it’s football, leaves, Halloween, T-day, X-mas, snow and winter, ugh!!

Before summer fades away to fall’s colors and activities, here’s what I need to accomplish:

• Pick a name for the Royal Baby… I’m thinking “Walter.” (Oh, they already did, and didn’t ask for my input?)
• Find a few more volunteers to help staff the “Day on the Town” booth, THIS SATURDAY.
• Keep studying my lines for this weekend’s One Act Festival, so I don’t go up on opening night.
• Make set building plans for “Regrets Only” (Monday and Wednesday evenings, starting on the 29th, y’all come).
• Do SOMETHING about those damn flies!!!
• Make sure the VP Strategic Planning Committee does not run out of steam before it gets started.
• Renew my VP membership and order my VP Season tickets.
• Show some leadership to the Board of Directors, and launch the “Regional Community Theatre Co-op I have been talking about for years!
• Come up with a catchy acronym for the above–RCTC, CTCOOP, SOCTP?
• Clean the gutters on the garage where small trees have sprouted.
• Clean last winter’s grunge off the patio furniture (before I put it away for the winter).
• Stick to the diet and keep driving to the goal (35 down/30 more to go!)
• Clean the garage. (Just found a deal on Living Social – for just $100, “CleanMyGarage.com”, will come clean your garage for you! Seems like a great deal, especially if it makes the spousal unit happy!?!)
• Get my car back from the bump shop! (Did you see my bruises?!?)
• Hope that the young deer in my neighborhood (saw him/her again this morning) survives suburban life.
• Lose no sleep over the Detroit bankruptcy, but continue to wonder, why I live here. Because my parents did? They moved here as young marrieds from rural Indiana/Ohio. Detroit was the land of opportunity at the time, fastest growing city in the nation between the war. But why am I still here?
• Keep pushing until my wife says I can retire (3 ½ years!)
• Did I mention “ugh?!”

–Gary Mach