Summer is winding down here in the northeast. It should be filled with lazy days by the pool and quiet evenings on the deck; the glow of a $10.00 cigar in the twilight, cicadas in the trees and the splash of a pungent amber liquid over shaved ice.
Instead I've got shit to do.
After I finish writing, I have a doctors appointment this morning. My doctor's office is 30 miles away, near where we used to live. From there I have to drive to a furniture store in Quakertown to pick up a matching bookcase to a set I've already gotten for my living room. From there I have to swing by Allentown to stop at a couple of bookstores on my way home. After I unload the bookcase from my truck, I have to go back out to the local lumberyard to pick up some oak paneling and trim for some new wainscoting I'm putting in my living room. My wife (who will be at her job all day -- I think they're plotting to take over the world or something) is planning on giving me a haircut before dinner. After wolfing down a Healthy Choice TV dinner, I'll be sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, assembling a new ebony, glass and chrome corner unit for the TV.
So screw the pool, screw the deck, screw the cigar, screw the cicadas, screw the adult beverage and, apparently, screw me too!
What ever happened to the simple life? I remember the endless summers of my youth. The days without appointment or agenda. Solitary afternoons reading comic books under a shade tree. Friends running through the woods playing war games. Laughing, our only concern being whose house would we crash for lunch.
I thought, "I'm retired now. I live at a resort. I can recapture one of those endless summers of my youth. This will be the year."
Yeah, right! I have appointments and agendas coming out of my ass. Comic books cost as much as my cigars and I'd really like both. My friends go home during the week and their wives decide when they can come out to play. And my biggest concern about lunch is whether I'll have time for it.
But, all seriousness aside, I really do like doing the guy stuff, too. The measuring and cutting. The band-aids. The scrap pile. The re-measuring and re-cutting. The trip back to the lumberyard for more wood. You know, guy stuff.
I guess my summer has been endless this year, but in a different way than years gone by. And I'll probably never recapture the innocence of my youth. But I can savor the heady aroma of life and enjoy the hell out of that. I do get my pool time in and I do have my quiet evenings on the deck, as well . . . mostly on weekends . . . just like everyone else.
In the mean time -- I've gotta go. I've got more balls in the air than The Flying Wallendas.
Addendum to original post: For my younger readers -- The Flying Wallendas were acrobats - not jugglers. This might help you get the joke.
No comments:
Post a Comment