The Teenager is currently attending summer school – there’s none of those long lazy lie-in’s for us. Summer School is a Californian educational must-have; the chance to improve on those grades for some, or fortunately for our teenager, the opportunity to get a couple of compulsory subjects out of the way to free up space in next term's highly academic schedule for some lightweight art “electives”. Of course we have to pay for this privilege – as do her friends attending public (state) run summer schools, and if she wasn’t at the Summer Academy (and some of her friends appear to be there from 7.00 in the morning until 7 at night) she would have a total of 11 weeks off school. So why they just don’t extend the school term for another 5 weeks in order to fit everything in?
Daughter No 1 is currently here too, volunteering as a counselor at a local children’s summer camp. That’s another All-American must-have; with 11 long weeks to fill summer camps provide the ideal solution not just for working parents who need to find childcare, but for High School kids looking to earn credits towards college entry through voluntary work. University places in California are like gold-dust – you don’t just need the straight A’s to get accepted; you need to have been in at least six school sports teams, chaired a dozen after school clubs and have completed several hours worth of “community service”. Don’t even think about applying to the big two, USC or UCLA, without it.
So the kids are well and truly embracing their new American lifestyle. After camp and after school they trot off together to Starbucks to indulge in some frothy toffee café latte type thing. The Teenager is now in possession of a Starbucks Gold Card and enjoys all those little extra upgrades this brings - extra caramel, extra ice, extra calories. She has also realized that at 15 and a half she can now apply for a driving permit so is about to embark on a course of “Driver Ed”. Scarily enough as soon as she’s passed her written test she can start to drive on the road as long as she accompanied by a “competent adult” (that wont be me then.)
I keep thinking am I going to be the last bastion of Britishness in this family or have even I succumbed to the Californian way of life? I do still take my own bags to the supermarket but I have just signed up for golf lessons - although I am not sure if that is embracing a new lifestyle or just part of the natural aging process.
Perhaps the most telling sign of this acclimitisation is literally just that – we’ve started putting the air conditioning on. A few days of temperatures well up in the 90’s and I realize I am housebound again – it’s straight from the air conditioned apartment to the air conditioned car. And then when the “marine layer” moves in for a day or two we welcome it as light relief – Cloudy today? Oh thank goodness for that…spoken like a true Californian.
And because it’s too hot I’ve had to curtail my morning walks and have resorted to visiting the residents’ gym. Like everything else in America, exercising is highly competitive. I’ve usually got the gym to myself but occasionally I’ll be joined by a total fitness fiend – someone who puts me to shame burning off 600 calories in one 15 minute session. I much prefer the alternative – the exercise-phobe who strolls in with a cup of coffee and positively dawdles along on the running machine. Then it’s my turn to feel ultimately superior and I fear all that competitiveness has rubbed off on me…….you really think five minutes walking at that speed will keep you fit?
As always there is a big flat screen TV up on the wall in the gym but this constant obsession with the TV is definitely part of American culture that I haven't embraced. If I’m exercising on my own I don’t have the TV on – after all it’s normally first thing in the morning, I’m contact lens-less and quite frankly have enough trouble seeing the digital readout in front of my nose let alone a TV screen a few feet away – that’s just a blurry distraction. However, part of a regular American warm-up routine will be the search for the TV remote and several subsequent channel hops. I have actually been asked if the TV was broken simply because it was off – there was a complete look of amazement when I replied no I just hadn’t switched it on. You’re kidding me!
No I’m quite happy just jogging along to my I-pod. The livelier the music the quicker I tend to run. Green Day’s “American Idiot” seems to work quite well for me. ;-)
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