AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Alright, time now for a summer progress report. Labor Day is only a month away - the unofficial finish line for summer, right?
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Among our many to-do lists for the season were the books we set out to read, the projects we were absolutely, definitely going to tackle. So, we wandered around NPR headquarters with one simple question.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: What summer activity did you tell yourself you were going to do this summer that you have not yet done?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Oh, man. I said I was going to make so much ice cream, and I have a whole list of, like, summer-specific flavors. Have I even gone to the farmers' market and bought peaches for the peach ice cream I want to make? No.
CHANG: (Laughter) Some of us had goals to dive into books.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: One specific book that I started at the beginning of last year, and I told myself, I'm giving myself till the end of this summer to finish it (laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: I made it a goal because I'm a big nerd who likes books about old boats.
KELLY: Oh. Well, many of us - and this is me hand-raising - we had planned to dive this summer into some water.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: I wanted to go to the beach. I haven't been to the beach yet.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: I really would have liked to visit more bodies of water.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: I did say I was going to, like, swim more, and I specifically got a certain hairstyle so I could swim for the three months of summer.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #8: Not a river, not a swimming pool, not an ocean, not a sea. Just show me a puddle. I'll jump into it, just to do it. I don't know. Got to figure it out before the summer ends.
CHANG: No shame in staying dry. Well, exactly when summer ends depends on who you ask. Meteorologists call it at the end of August. Astronomers wait for the autumn equinox in September.
KELLY: However you count the days, the window for summer plans, it's starting to close.
CHANG: Not everyone is racing to fit one more thing into this summer. For a few people, the season went exactly as planned.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #9: I did everything that I wanted to do this summer in June. I got to go home to New Mexico and swim and be outside and enjoy the sunshine. And I've done everything, and now I'm just waiting for the summer to be over for it to be fall.
KELLY: Cue the writing of to-do lists for back-to-school shopping, jumping into piles of raked leaves - oh, Ailsa, fall football.
CHANG: And a shout-out to our amazing producers whom you just heard from - Gabriel Sánchez, Mallory Yu, Henry Larson, Michelle Aslam.
KELLY: Also, Jeffrey Pierre, Vincent Acovino, Jordan-Marie Smith, Daniel Ofman and Elena Burnett. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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