Being your fairly basic model of blokiness, I hadn’t noticed before that advertising women’s hygiene products is seasonal. However, I haven’t been able to switch on the box this week without viewing hoard’s of manically smiling women leaning over family picnic hampers, sporty little cars and anything else that’s going to emphasise the contents of their tight, jaunty little shorts – bless 'em.
It’s not the glazed and disturbing smiles that really concern me but the knowledge that they’re actually reaching for the bread-knife, the car jack and any other blunt instrument that comes readily to hand.
In the old pre global warming days, the weather and blossoming flora were good indications of seasonal change. Now I’ve got friggin panty liners. What’s telling you other Northern Hem folk it’s supposed to be summer ?
Well, my students’ grades are posted, assorted graduate seminar papers are written, and the semester’s over except for this one pesky student who keeps demanding to know why he got a C on his final project. I wouldn’t mind explaining to him, but this is the sort of student you really don’t want to meet with in an empty building. Sometimes I wish I were teaching sweet little kindergarteners…
On the bright side, I’m loading up the backpack for three whole months in foreign parts. Details to be posted if and when I can find a cybercafe…
Ah, London_Calling, you’re a man I like. I was just about to start a thread like this.
I spent the evening dining in a restaurant in Amsterdam. I was there with a friend, whom I hadn’t seen in a couple of years. Great catching up, and plenty of beer to make sure the conversation didn’t halt. The restaurant itself is nice, decent food, but the real attraction are the waitresses. I mean, HONESTLY. They only hire GORGEOUS girls, and nothing smaller than a C-cup. And the official attire is a very, very tight t-shirt. Call me superficial, call me a pig, but for two lads who’ve been inside all winter, this was pure heaven. My GOD.
At 23:00, we left the restaurant and planted ourselves on one of the terraces around the corner, behind the old Heineken brewery. And then we had two beautiful pints of Guinness each. It was still 20 degrees outside. Wonderful.
I think I’m gonna play Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” now. Woo!
…I can’t get the children to go to bed and to sleep anymore, 'cause it’s still light outside. Therefore, it must not be bedtime yet. The Land of the Midnight Sun does have its drawbacks…
[li]I open the windows and keep them open.[/li]
[li]I turn on the ceiling fan in the dining room and leave it on, day and night.[/li]
[li]I switch my winter clothes for my summer stuff in the main closet.[/li]
[li]I buy a fresh new bottle of sunscreen.[/li]
[li]I hear the icecream truck outside my window in the evening (his truck plays a funky pseudo-calliope version of “Turkey In the Straw”… excellent).[/li]
[li]I give my car its once-a-year bath.[/li]
[li]I clean the pine needles and bird poo off of my balcony in preparation for balmy evenings out there, drink in hand.[/li]
[li]I activate my automatic icemaker in preparation for long evenings, drink in hand.[/li]
[li]I drive up and help my parents with yard work (and am richly rewarded for my labors with a drink for my hand).[/li]
I make a trip to my sister’s house to do the Traditional Annual Banishing of the Snakes Ritual on her beach (blacksnakes infest her yard and her boyfriend is freaked out by them, and no, I don’t kill them, bleah, that’s mean).
You know summer is here when going out for a walk on a warm evening, you hear the ‘crunch, crunch, crunch’ of amorous snails being crushed mercilessly beneath your boots.
I know summer is coming when insect season starts. I am a magnet for all biting insects. If there’s one mosquito or gnat in the world, it will bite me. I generally keep my house completely sealed all summer due to allergies, but occasionally an insect gets into the house, and it will hound me incessantly. I’m the only person I know that has to wear insect repellant INSIDE their home.
Oh for the blissful days of yore, when we’d just hang up a Shell NoPest Strip in the kitchen or bedroom, not realizing the dangers of prolonged exposure to Vapona pesticide.
Music through open windows, the distant sound of someone cutting their lawn, waking up to the sound of birds singing outside, stocking up on lemons and limes for tonics and lemonade, the unbelievable green-ness of the outfield at the ball dianmond, summer dresses on women - catching a whiff of some light perfume as they walk past, sand everywhere, an ice cream headache, watermelons, silver queen corn right from the pot slathered with butter and pepper, my birthday, never opening the hall closet door - its only got overcoats in it anyway, almost perpetual randiness. All of these things mean that my favorite season - SUMMER- is here. Hot, humid, sticky, makes you move slower than tar, sweaty SUMMER. I love it.
When my tan lines match my river gear. White stripes for my sandals, white stripe for my watch and white blocks in the shape of my river vest where the tan starts up again from the navel down to my shorts.
** Fretful** – Oh yes! Digging out the backpack and finding little things from the last trip…phew, what a buzz.
Hey Eve remember when it was ‘cool’ to be a fag hag. Ah yes!, the height of I’ve-made-it-in-the-big-city metro sophistication. Friggin’ dimbo’s. A tip (not that you need one): Offer to help any likely looking candidates waving a street map around. It’s the tourist season and time to snare Mr Visiting Lumberjack. Timm-berrrrr !!!
** BigDaddyD** – Thanks for sharing !
Coldie “…Call me superficial, call me a pig…” – I’m with yer, dude. Remember walking past that cafe at about 12 noon with the topless waitresses ?? And that was April…,<…whimper…> Can’t imagine what it’s like now…<…whimper a little more and a little more…>
** Creaky** – “I hear the icecream truck outside my window in the evening (his truck plays a funky pseudo-calliope version of “Turkey In the Straw”… excellent)”… now that is the sound of summer a commin !!
kferr – Disturbing big guy, very disturbing.
As for the rest, sorry about the sinuses, the non-sleeping kids an’ all but, frankly, if I have to put up with psychotic panty lining Stepfords every time I hit the remote, I don’t care !!
Me thinks you would have been whimpering a lot more in April when the air was cooler, but then again, I never could figure you men out.
I can always tell summer is coming when we are all ready to kick the crap out of my youngest son. Something about the count-down to the last day of school just makes him obnoxious!