Summers and Sisters
As I sit here on our deck in the backyard I have to wonder if what I thought I did just last week really happened. Did what I think really happen or was it simpy a wispy figment of my overactive imagination, or maybe it was me meditating too much and “poof” there I was, in Alaska.? I know that I thought I had just spent three weeks in Alaska, but I wonder if what I thought I did really happened or just a thing that I dream of doing every summer. Would someone just pinch me a wake me up from my dream-state?

No, forget the pinch, (I always hated those pinching games in school. I was always one of those getting pinched and not really knowing the reason), on second thought let me just live in my dreams. It’s much more pleasant. Besides, if someone wakes me up I’ll have to join the ranks of the here a now which means work, responsiblity, and getting up before 10:00 in the morning. Don’t get me wrong, I admire all of those things, especially that 10 o’clock thing. In fact, I once had a relative that embodied all of those things-God rest his soul. I really didn’t know him very well as I was just a young whippersnapper at the time. My uncle always called me that and to this day I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. So I’m really uneasy calling any young person by that name. And since he died when I was about 8 I can’t really ask him about it. He died, at 42, of a heart attack. I heard people say that he had a Type A personality. So I’m guessing that’s something that may have led to his his demise.

Anyway, ever since then I have sworn off anything to do with a Type A personality. Not that I think that it is catching, I’m just not taking a chance. But that is not the real reason that I remember for. When he was younger he once suffered a preforated eardrum from playing Tarzan over the water (and landing in a very undignified Tarzan-like way) and so he had a slight hearing problem in one ear. He could do something I’ve never seen anyone do before or since; since he was a pipesmoker he could, through a series of gyrations and slight belching, actually make smoke come out of his ear. For awhile there I was the coolest kid on the block as no other kids had any relatives that could do anything so awesome. He could never remember which ear the smoke would come out of so whenever we would get him to preform this trick it came as a surprise to him and an amusement to us. So I guess, to be honest, I’m not really sure what he died of; being a Type A person, smoking, or too many bodily orfices. But, excuse me, I digress.

I just read that Tucson, Arizona has had 21 days in a row of temperatures above 115*, so I called my sister in Fresno, California which incidently is just the next state over from Arizona (for those that are geographically challenged). I was looking for a little sympathy. See, we’ve been having somewhat of our own heatwave in Crescent City. In fact, I’ve been worrying about the state of our thermometer on the back deck. The sun came out from behind the fog in such a hurry I thought that the mercury may explode with a resounding crash right through the top of the thermometer. The temperature was 71*. For Crescent City that is a really, really nice day. If it gets up to 80* people have to go find their manuels to their heat pumps to figure out how to use the air conditioner feature of it. In fact, in our town that’s just the kind of thing that makes the headlines in our newspaper, that and the time when “vandals” dug a trench to let the water drain into the ocean from Lake Tolowa-basically a large mud puddle that many people call a lake that drains at its own discretion when it rises to height that only it can dictate, which is above the mean high tide level. Let’s see, where was I? Excuse me, I digress.

Oh yes, trying to get a little sympathy from my older sister about the extreme temperatures here on the coast. She didn’t buy it. She just waited for me to wind down and take a breath and announced that she was sitting in the house-next to the air condtioner because it was 107* outside and she was afraid that she would die of something related to heat exhaustion or basically anything that you would get if you had to move in those kinds of temperatures. I picked up on that rather quickly. I’m pretty shrewd that way-gifted even. Not inclined to miss something when someones tells me in an off-hand way-too often. Frankly, I’m surprised that I wasn’t identified as a GATE student when I was in grade school. The best recogntion that I received was that I was put in in high reading group that was supposed to work independently that we quickly botched up by playing catch with the football in the hallway. Hindsight: I guess we should have tried to make it to the second week at least.

Seeing that I couldn’t get anything sympathy from her I quickly changed the subject to something to the effect of, “did you notice how much the price of gas has risen lately?” I felt that she would have been hard pressed to beat me on the price of gas in her area versus Crescent City. Then I remembered that she doesn’t have car. Why is it that older sibling can always “one up” you when it comes to comparisons, even when they’re not even trying? Maybe that’s why I don’t keep in contact with them very well. It’s because even if you call them up and tell them that you’re taking advantage of a growing stock option that is going to make you rich and famous in a short time, they just sold that stock and are sitting on a beach in Hawaii at their new (paid for) beach house, sipping cold beer watching the sun go down entering their “golden years” at the age of 51. And had just received her Senior Discount Card (now redeemable at two places in town) good at both Muggles Knitting Shoppe and Dashee’s Authentic Kenya Cuisine. Meanwhile the best that you can hope for is retirement at 62 still 12 years away. Hmmmmphh!ffff