i’m losing my tan

How can that be, you ask?  I live in the hottest state in the country, where we have 360 days of sunshine a year.  And I’m losing my tan.  Well, don’t judge me yet, my sun-deprived friends of the Northeast;don’t judge me.  The thing is, there’s no water here.  There’s the occasional inground pool, but by this time of year it is just a puddle of tepid water, hovering near boiling point and full of who-knows-what kind of fungi and algae.  Our rivers are bone dry; the closest “lake” is almost 2 hours from here and even then you can’t swim in it.

So.  That is why I’m losing my tan.  Who wants to sit out and tan when there is no place to go swimming and cool off?  Given the strength of the sun, it would probably only take 15 minutes of “sitting out” a day to build up a lovely, toasty color, but it’s still 95+ degrees, so it really is quite miserable.

It’s amazing how addicted we can become to air conditioning.

rolling along

There was an almost full bottle of Poland Springs water on my car floor this morning.  I took a left turn, the bottle rolled right.  I took a right turn, the bottle rolled left and hit the console with a thud. I took another left, the bottle rolled right.  It continued as such, and I got frustrated when I had to make 3 consecutive left turns.  The bottle doesn’t roll when you make 3 consecutive left turns.  Not to make a political analogy or anything.

When I got back into my car after work, the heat hit me like a wool blanket.  I’ve felt thick air before; growing up in New England, the summer days of hot, hazy sun and 90 percent humidity made you feel that if you jumped off a roof, the air would catch you.   The desert air is different.  This air smothers you, forces you to slow down, commands you to consider the heat.  Your skin starts to prickle and tingle, and when you breathe your chest feels like a balloon.  “How hot is it?” I wondered. “It must be 101 at least.  Or 102.”

Then my AC kicked in and I again entered the easy, artificially comfortable world.

babe, i’m gonna leave you

I ain’t jokin’ woman…  One of my favorite songs.  I don’t know how Zeppelin managed to create this masterpiece out of such simple lyrics; perhaps because it’s caught in a moment, or perhaps it’s because they rocked harder than any other band. 

I never knew I liked Zeppelin; in fact, during my teen years I had a strong distaste for anything labeled ‘classic rock.’ I blame it on ignorance.  I distinctly recall driving with a friend in college and him playing a tape of the stuff, forcing me to listen to it, turning the bass up just slightly, and coercing me to hear the genius riffs.  “Listen to it,” he said, ”Listen to it and you’ll like it.”  Like my father told me about eating spinach.

But my friend was right; my father wasn’t.  I owe a lot to that friend.  So Jake Morley, if you’re out there, thank you.

a vignette of old

She was sick of us pestering her.  She was sick of us pestering each other.  She was sick of the workload ahead of her, and the distractions around her.  She’d had enough.

“Alright, that’s enough.” When she spoke like that, we knew to shut up. “We’re going swimming.”

We were overjoyed.  We’d been at this cottage called a house for several days and had not dipped into the lovely little lake on which it rested.  My mother wanted to be with us when we broke into the calm waters; we were too young to watch ourselves. 

We dug our bathing suits out from the unopened boxes of clothes, and undressed faster than we had ever done before.  The excitement had been mounting for days, and the effects of being teased by the bright blue waters had become unbearable.

It was Labor Day weekend, and we had just moved from the only house we’d ever known into a tiny, 2 bedroom cottage on Greenwood Pond.  The nut brown house sat on two and a half acres of waterfront property, which made up for its lack of stature.  The property was lined by tall oaks, maples, pines, and bright white birches, and was set back from the road so we truly felt we were removed from the world.

It was idyllic, and we couldn’t wait to jump into that water.

We ran out to the “beach”, a small strip of weeds and coarse sand that bordered a few yards of water.  My mother followed carrying our towels and a folding chair.  We didn’t care that we had no sand toys, no inflatable tubes, and only one of us knew how to swim. We were ready.

Being the oldest, my sister ran in first.  There were a few moments of pure jealousy that she had gone in first, had felt the cool wetness of the lake before we had even reached it. 

Then she started screaming. ”My feet! My feet!”  My brother and I, close behind, stopped abruptly and didn’t dare venture into the water.  What could be in there, eating her feet?

My mother quickly came to the water. 

“What is it, Cathy?” she asked. “What’s wrong with your feet?”

“They hurt; they just hurt!” Cathy cried.

“Both of them?”

“No, just one.”

“Well, come out of the water and let’s have a look,” my mother said in her ever calm voice.

My sister started walking out of the water, and started screaming again, “My other foot!  Ow, Mom! My other foot now!”

She crawled onto the shore on her hands and knees.  By this time my brother and I could see the water near her feet spiraling with red swirls.  What had happened to her? we wondered.

She sat on the sand and lifted her feet for us all to see.  There were slices up and down each foot, dripping with bright crimson blood. 

“Well,” my mother said, “It looks like we’ve got clams.”

like a thief in the night…

…only it was broad daylight.  Will the effects of this burlary ever cease?  It has touched every part of my life, from the shallows of replacement TVs to the depths of my dreams.  The annoyances of changing bank accounts and calling credit cards have lessened, but the pain of being violated still lingers.  It has placed a shadow over the house that we are trying to blow away, but it has been a slow process.  My morning routine now consists of locking myself in the house, activating the newly installed alarm system, and showering more quickly. 

Things come up as days go by.  When replacing our TV, we realized the thieves had the foresight to take our remote control.  When canceling our credit card and bank accounts, we also had to change all of our online information.  The memory card to my camera had been carefully taken out of our computer tower.  Little things like this make it difficult to erase the memory and move on.

I’m really grateful it wasn’t worse.  There are a million ways it could have worse.  Worse would’ve been if they’d trashed the place.  Worse would’ve been if the cats had run away.  Worse would’ve been if I’d been home.

I’m looking forward to the day I drive home and don’t wonder if someone is waiting for me.

an encore entrance into the blogging world

Having previously experienced blogging in an unfortunate way, I am now tentatively infiltrating the blogging world.  My fancy for this stems from a number of things, mainly that I feel the desire to write again, and I type much faster than I pen.  I have on numerous occasions felt compelled to inscribe my thoughts and record my events, but have lacked the patience to watch my hand slowly slide across a lined sheet.

This being said, I cannot promise anything in regards to this blog.  It will, I promise, be inconsistent and unusual, but never insincere.