TheBanyanTree: A String of 90s

[Margaret R. Kramer]

There is that moment between night and dawn when the earth seems to hold its
breath, it’s like a magical second when anything can happen, and then it
fades away as the sun moves up and the moon moves down.  I caught that
second when I was swimming laps yesterday, glancing out the window as I
glided from one of the pool to the other.  I caught it this morning as I
went outside in the thick humid air to get the newspapers and I felt
something hug me and then let go just when the barest trace of a summer
breeze began to whisper through the trees.

It seems this moment is more intense in summer than winter and it’s
especially intense when the days have been as hot as they have.  The slight
coolness we receive at night isn’t strong enough to hang onto during the
day.  And that bridge between cool and hot is built when that magical moment
is passing through.

The sun is up now and is trying to glare at us through the haze.  It’s
almost 80 degrees at 7:30 am in the morning, which promises an extremely hot
and humid day for us in Minnesota.  We’ve been stringing together 90 degree
days, one after another and a necklace this long hasn’t been seen here since
1988 when we didn’t get a drop of rain all summer.

But I love this hot weather.  I love having my sunroof open and not caring
if my skin is sweaty.  I love having a cool bottle of water in my hand as I
sit on my deck and slam down another book.  I love going to the beach with
my grandsons and getting sunburned in spite of my tan.  I love the smell of
glowing charcoal mixing with the clover as I run through the park.

I love the sour taste of the lemons as I sip an icy glass of lemonade.  What
else can I order at happy hour?  We had a happy hour for a departing
co-worker and I actually went.  I haven’t gone to any of my work’s happy
hours, because I’m kind of shy and I like just going home after work.  It
was the end of a hot day, and ordering coffee just didn’t seem to be the
right thing, so I ordered lemonade.  I looked around the two tables pushed
together and noticed immediately there was a “cool” table where all the “in”
people were gathering and the “non-cool” table where all the dorks were
sitting, like me.  But I like dorks and I have long since left high school
behind me, and I’ve given up worrying about being part of the “popular”
crowd.  So I talked to the dorks.  More dorks came and sat at our table and
more cool people came and sat at the other table.

After two lemonades and a great urge to empty my bladder, I got up to go
home.  As I waving good-bye to everyone, I realized the cool people were the
ones who drink, and I mean drink, seriously drink and the dorks, well, we
were the ones sipping on our lemonades and nursing weak beer.  Maybe to be
cool means you need a drug to make you more social, and dorks just like
being dorks.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not
with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a
show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw
Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.  You
may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. .  ~Erma Bombeck