The summer of 2013 -- while certainly not over -- taught us a few things. We learned:
1) That there is actually a little bit of royal-watcher in all of us.
Come on, admit it: That little baby is one cutie-patootie. We might not care much for the name and many of us quietly thanked our own kids for not giving us any grandsons named George, but we all sat glued in front of our TVs waiting for a glimpse of the little guy born to Kate Middleton and Prince William. The Royal Baby has even given U.K. tourism a shot in the arm. And yeah, the side-by-side photos of Princess Diana introducing William to the world left the world hoping for a happier outcome for Kate.
2) That the only one interested in Anthony Weiner's weiner is him.
If Huma Abedin was our daughter, we would be reading every analysis of why she stayed with Mr. Can't Stop Himself. But since she's not, we'd like the whole lot of them to just go away already. And please, for the love of all things honorable, take the sexting mistress Sydney Leathers and her "how to seduce a politician manual" with them when they go.
Weiner reminded us that middle-age men are such silly gooses sometimes. Note to Weiner: Just buy a red corvette and lose the Twitter account.
3) That we have never stopped wanting Geraldo Rivera to demonstrate some self-control.
Yes, we can go for long periods without him entering our consciousness and are able to forget about him excavating Al Capone's secret vault or getting his nose broken in an on-air brawl of his making, but then he ups and does something that makes us have to think about him again. This summer, he may have upstaged even himself when he tweeted a nearly nude selfie with the comment "70 is the new 50." Sadly, it isn't always, as Geraldo narcissistically showed us.
Geraldo needs to embrace the idea that we all age and that some of us do it more gracefully than others. About the truest thing he's ever said was his later-issued mea culpa: "No tweeting after 1 a.m." Amen to that. There is some dignity to going quietly into the dark night, you know.
4) That TV watching patterns may have changed radically, but summer is still re-runs season.
I watch TV the way I read the New Yorker: I let others watch it/read it first and then when they start to talk about the hot show/article with the buzz, I play catch up. I don't have much spare time for either television shows or the magazine any more, so letting others tell me what's good works. I think of it as a form of editing and it has spared me ever having to watch a single episode of "America's Got Talent."
5) That summer is, and always has been, the best season.
When you are a kid, the ringing of the bell on the last day of school always screamed "freedom" at us. Summers meant staying up as late as you want because you could sleep in all morning, not having homework, and lots of lazying around till the point of boredom. But just like there is no such thing as bad pizza, there was no such thing as a bad summer off from school. The same is true now. Summer is the time for shorter skirts, flip-flops, and being outside for as many hours a day as you can. We take vacations in the summer, remember why we love iced tea in the summer, and allow ourselves to occasionally forget that sun is our enemy; we still love the way it feels on our skin -- even if for just a few stolen moments before the Sunscreen Police pass us the bottle.