Since Memorial Day weekend (May 23-25) is the unofficial start of summer vacation, here’s a checklist to get you ready for summer:

1. Watch summer vacation movies.
I must say that my favorite is Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (Les Vacances de M. Hulot), a 1953 French movie from Jacques Tati which was nominated for the Grand Prize at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. In this charming comedy, Tati plays Hulot, a lovable Frenchman who jumps from one misadventure to another at a quiet seaside resort. (It is a particularly useful film if you want to improve your tennis game—watch and you’ll see what I mean.) Click here to view the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_92Cm8gl7Ls

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2. Select a few good books to read.
Here’s a list of 100 titles as chosen by listeners of NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106983620. The one book I want to highlight is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a work not set in the Hamptons but rather in “West Egg” and “East Egg”—Great Neck and Port Washington peninsulas on Long Island—close enough, I think. For some unknown reason Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (also known as Remembrance of Things Past) (À la recherche du temps perdu) is not on the list!

3. Consider starting (or resuming) a hobby.
Time to get out that easel, set it up on the beach, and start painting. And if it starts raining, no worries: you can head to the Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner museum in East Hampton: http://sb.cc.stonybrook.edu/pkhouse/. I do hope that in no time you’ll produce works like those of Mary Cassatt, one of “les trois grandes dames” of Impressionism.

4. Call A Votre Service!
To make sure that you can enjoy your time on the beach, you’ll want to be certain that everything at home is taken care of. We will clean the windows, do odd jobs around the house, get your garage or attic organized, and even straighten up your home office. Since we’re able to do just about everything at your house you’ll have plenty of time to tackle all seven volumes of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.

Amitiés,
Jocelyne