It’s March in Seattle and chunky rain is falling. My spouse and I call this seasonal outpouring “chunky” rain because it seems like someone is sitting on our roof and occasionally, in a maddeningly random, and quite imperious fashion, adding small white freezing globs to the normal clear drops that fall from the sky. I know what you are thinking -- and, no, it’s not snow. I am aware that snow floats. It’s more like 20 bums sitting up on the roof, spiting snowcone bits into a gutter, which, in some weird alternate world, just happens to be our backyard. It is not a pretty sight. Even the cat will not go out into the bushes for his daily latrine duty during chunk-fall. He wisely uses the kitty box in the gardening shed instead.
As this is a typical Spring in the Pacific Northwest -- the chunk-rain is falling apace. I am a Seattle native so it would not be seemly for me to appear to whine about this or, in fact, to take any notice of it at all.
I’m cool with the usual de rigeur native rain behavior: We never use an umbrella under any circumstances. We only wear a hat if making a bold fashion statement or for some reason we are going bald. And, most of all, we never, never let a little water falling from the sky stop us from doing any old thing that strikes our fancy on any old day our fancy happens to get struck. Of course if what strikes my fancy on a day like this is a walk around our beautiful, centrally located fitness magnet, “Greenlake”, I have to go to great lengths to hide my attempts to stay warm and dry in order to save face should I run into any other Seattle-born acquaintances during my perambulations. This involves much layering of silk underwear under deceptively flimsy clothing, an unobtrusive flesh-colored neck scarf and a jacket with a hood that can quickly be pulled back into it’s “I really couldn’t care less,” position should a native person approach. Let me tell you, getting exercise can be quite the ordeal.
So this morning I’m sitting and watching the rain spit down, thinking, screw the walk, and then morosely wondering if I should do a ‘night run’ up the street to get the mail so I won’t have to stroll past the neighborhood houses nonchalantly, like getting frigid goo down my neck is a matter of absolutely no consequence to me. Then I remembered the tweetomancy reading I got this morning, and it all came back to me.
Some mornings when I first log in to my twitter account home, I take a second and go to the ‘Everyone’ section, and with eyes closed click on a random tweet. This morning’s tweet was:
“Waltzing about town in short shorts”
Well, thanks buddy. You live in, lets see, er, Austin Texas, which is today, ah, just a sec -- let me Google that -- clickity, click -- Oh- My- God-- is a frigging 68 degrees warm today? Thanks, my friend, for rubbing in the fact that you can blithely waltz around your town in skimpy short-shorts, without getting goosebumps the size of Mount Rainier on every part of the body that you are wantonly, and without thought for the delicate feelings of others, flaunting before the elements for everyone to see. No soggy jacket sticking to your ass and your car seat. No stumbling into a ravine next to your garbage cans because your glasses get fogged-up and wet. No damp neck, damp feet, and damp feelings, because your hands resemble wrinkled white asparagus on the week-old veggie-bargain table. A Happy Blue Danube kinda day to you too, Mr. Happy Go Lucky!
Well, wait a minute, what the heck, I guess maybe you better keep waltzing away my friend. I can see that your tweet is perhaps a timely reminder to me that somewhere in the world the sun is shining down on the carefree legs of dancing males. Somewhere, someone is moving like a zephyr on the springtime air with a light heart, while living in the moment and getting their vitamin D the natural way instead from the Jumbo-size sale bottle from the drugstore.
Your tweet has inspired me to take the high-ground -- another thing you probably don’t have to worry about in your neck of the woods! -- so I’ll just try to be happy for you and your sun-drenched, twirling, foot-tapping exuberance.
Hey I have an idea. I am going to go straightaway and ferret out my one pair of short-shorts and then find my 78 record of “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” and keep them safe until summer. Then, come August, when you and yours are huddled up indoors, with your hands up to the air conditioner and the temperate days of March are a dim, dim, memory, I will put them on, get the cat and we will dance out on the deck. The air will caress our extremities like sun kissed gloves, we will twirl, and twirl until we fall down in a dizzy, happy heap. Then, when I can walk straight and get over a serious case of happy feet I will come inside to log into Twitter and my first Tweet of the Day will be --
“Hey, Mr JonRay, I am waltzing around my deck in my short, shorts”!
©Robin Wendell 2009
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