6 posts tagged “sun”

Johnny Seeds

Sunshine on my skin
With concrete beneath my toes

Feelin' a'ight in my own backyard
Eatin' toasted o's and playin' the guitar

In a knowledge drought
Gonna plant a little tree

I do not have the water
But I got a bag of seeds

Knew a little woman
She lived like a sacred nun

Thought I knew the man
That could'a treated her better

Clinging to her cross
Sorrow was her rosary

Do not think she's prayin'
when she's on her knees

Ain't afraid of missin' nothin'
That I don't know's real

Sunshine on my toes
And concrete on my skin

In a knowledge drought
Gonna plant a little tree

I do not have the water
But I got a bag of seeds

When I start to pay attention
I get caught up on misery

If I do not borrow trouble
I can be happy honestly

Feelin' a'ight in my own backyard
Eatin' toasted o's and playin' the guitar.

Appropriately enough, it was sunny last Sunday.

The neighbors on both sides of us were gone to the subdivision pool.

I was in no condition to enjoy the water myself, having been sunburned in an odd pattern the day before at the pool.

The shape of the burn looked suspiciously as if sunscreen spray was applied to me by a person of approximately the same height as my wife, as I was carrying a 14 month old in my left arm/side while kneeling down to help a 3 year old into the foot-deep kiddie pool.

So on this sunny Sunday, I could be found in a small patch of shade on the patio,
reading a book and listening to tunes.

My own collection.

Modern commercial radio gives me a rash.

The kiddies were down for a nap. 

It was a beautiful moment complete with birds chirping and the rustle of the tree branches in the light breeze.

The wife emerges from the house.

In a bikini.

I slide the sunglasses down my nose a bit for an unfiltered view.

She lays out several lounge chair cushions and a towel, with intent to lay-out in the sun, just beyond my feet.

This despite the recent article in Newsweek we discussed about the addictive nature of sunbathing.

I think about scolding her, but instead take a pull from the whiskey tumbler.

It's just not proper etiquette to scold a woman in a bikini. 

Just to hit my homemaker's quota of bitching for the day, I made the decision to hound her about turning in her expense reports for reimbursement later instead, when she has more clothes on.  That would have to do.

The album ended after another twenty or so minutes of ogling, and my tumbler contents must have evaporated, because it was dry.

I'd only advanced the book a few pages.

On returning outside, I discovered that the wife had turned over on her belly... and removed her top.

There's only one small step out to our patio, but I still nearly managed to miss it, sloshing a small drop of the precious amber elixir.  Ah, let the angels have their fabled share.

I put the album into the player and resumed my shaded perch.  The show was getting better in the second half.

Maybe those expense reports could wait another day or two before I followed up with her about them.

So, it was then that the wife looks over and winks, "Ya like that do ya?"

"Well, yes."

"We've been together forever and it's nothing you don't get to see everyday." 

I also chose to let the double-negative slide, you know, considering.

"Yeah, but this is, like, naughty."

Another smirk and she turns her head away and back down to sleep.

The tumbler gets empty again, somehow.  I need to get up to go fix that again.

But she's still just laying there, sleeping, topless.

Mischief floods my percolating synapses.

I set the tumbler down gently, and reach for the wallet out of my pocket, finding a $5 bill.

Hello, Mister Lincoln.  I know you're usually found on Mount Rushmore, among other places, but I think that the Grand Canyon would suit you better just now.

So, instead of advice, I gave my wife a tip.

A quick tug from the wrist, up and out, slide the bill in, then let the bikini snap back.

Ah, the outdoors.  Great for developing a deeper appreciation of my favorite national monuments.

Had a spare moment that coincided with the eldest daughter finishing a jigsaw puzzle.

Took her outside in the sun.

Started doing jumping jacks.

Got her to join in.

The laughing might have been more exercise than the jacks.

Until a sojourning pill-bug became more fascinating.

And my eyes shut with stinging sweat.

So,

is it bad karma to have splattered a fly with a borrowed library book?

It's only that I was sitting on the deck, enjoying the relative warmth of the afternoon sun after a morning thunderstorm, with another Detective John Rebus book, "Strip Jack" by Ian Rankin.

The flies were thick, having just awoken from the frozen season of Hoth here, and more voracious of appetite than the bears.

One, having annoyed me repeatedly, worrying with my hair, legs, and finally mouth, had settled on the edge of our bistro table.

It had bothered me so often that I could actually tell it apart from the others.

My nemesis.

Eldest daughter played, unawares, on the slide.

Having alighted mere inches from the hardback book I held in my right hand, its pages guarded from flipping by the wind by the glass of chardonnay in my left, I, without thinking, upon instinct, blasted the little bastard with a cudgel-like blow.

After a split-second, okay, maybe longer of satisfied glee, "me big warrior, kill annoying shithead" euphoria, I noticed the detritus the thing had left on the back cover.

Ewwww.

I think I'll use the drive-through drop-off slot for this title.

The Vortex strikes again.

A foster-adopted-step cousin of mine is separating from her husband and moving back there.

Oh, the foster-adopted-step-cousin thing?

Yeah, I have a nightmarish M.C. Escher family tree.

Anyway, another one pulled back.

She'd been out of the place we shall not mention for better than 14 years.

I'm telling you, and myself, you have to watch these things; forever.

And they'd just adopted a two year old girl from China, as in 4 months ago.

Will China even let you keep an adopted child if you get separated/divorced?

Similarly, what were they thinking adopting a child if things were choppy?

Or was it the added stress of the kid thing that widened/exploited an existing crack?

Ain't nothing in this world for sure.

Excepting for how good hot dogs taste when slightly burned/blacked around the outer skin/casing.

Today was warm enough to open up the windows for ventilation and cook like a caveman all flame and noir style; i.e. blackened.

Smoke detector be damned, mmmwa-hahahaha.

Fire, meat (assorted beef pieces in a tube-shape), good.

I even read a book on the deck wearing only shorts and got the first official minor sunburn of the season.

Sweet.

On the first sunny day over 60 degrees F this year.

...to do what I want, any old time."

The weather has been gray, cold, windy, wet, and generally miserable.

I'm totally digging it this year.

It's been something I've just suffered through our first three years here.

Didn't used to be that way though and I'm getting back to that.

I grew up in one of the hotter corners of the desert... and embraced it.

It was a test of wills for me.

Any given 128 degree day, you could find me on one city park volleyball court or another, coaxing friends out from under shade-trees and into the dangerous direct sunlight for endless games until the sun relinquished and retreated beyond the horizon.

I went away to college in the coldest part of the state, with the highest altitude, over 7000 feet.

Again, I embraced the elements and any given blizzard would find me coaxing friends from out of the warm apartment, dorm, or bar to get out in the snow and go sledding or snowball fight, or just tramp through the stuff to get more liquor from the store when the roads were impassable.

After college, I got married and the wife and I moved to Seattle.  One of the consistently wetter larger cities.
While there for 4 1/2 years, we put a grand total of less than a thousand miles on our truck.  We took mass transit buses, alot, walking to and standing at exposed bus-stops.  We walked or took the bus everywhere, regardless of light or heavy rain (the Seattle-based equivalent of "rain or shine".)  She played in an outdoor soccer league.  We were  always out somewhere, and the elements didn't bother us.  It only snowed a significant amount twice in the city while we were there, and both times caught us out walking around and we trudged through it.  We coaxed our friends to come out with us and ignore the precipitation.

Seems I might finally be getting back to that here.

I will dictate my life to the weather; not the other way around.