"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
My Boog Pages
Friday, October 17
Hot Time
James Lileks has started another post with a lament for the end of summer, "glorious one day and dank the next" etc. Now, I like James Lileks. I read his column every day. But James Lileks is damn sure not from Texas.
Down here we feel about summer the way they probably feel about winter up in Minnesota. We fondly remember it once it's gone. We think of long afternoons sitting around the swimming pool sipping iced tea, lazy Saturdays spent in a boat at the local fishing hole, cool evenings on the front porch swapping lies. Just as, I'm sure, Minnesotans think of ice forts, snowball fights, and cozy days when it's too cold to even venture outside.
What's the first thing I think of when I thing of summer? Sweat. Thick, sticky beads of it, rolling down my face, my arms, my back. Not like those beads of water rolling down the side of a cold beer; more like the beads under the lid of the saucepan when you're boiling rice.
Of course, there's always the dry-roasted feeling you get when you step outside into 100-plus degree temperatures and your body temp hasn't caught up yet. When it does, then the sweating begins. You can lose five pounds walking across the parking lot to your car. And when you open the car door it's like opening the gates of Hell.
Lileks calls the summers in Washington, D.C. "punishing". Sheesh.
* * *
I'm finally back to normal after scuttling around like a crab most of the week. I hurt my back and had a lot of trouble straightening up - it felt like the last 3 vertebrae were doing the grind with the top of my pelvis - so I hunched around like Groucho Marx, minus the mustache.
I got hurt playing football. Yes, a macho injury! But not really. After throwing around a plastic football during a power outage last week, my boss brought in a real football on Monday. At quitting time we went outside to throw for a while in the parking lot. We hadn't played more than five minutes when I managed to toss it up on the covered parking. Fred (the boss) drove his sport ute over and I climbed up to see if I could reach the ball. No luck, and when I hopped down I felt a little click in my back.
