FIGHTING THE HEAT

It is Tuesday, June 25, 2013 as I write this and it is the second full day of heat and humidity. The heat I can take, but the humidity is too oppressive. As I sat in my den reading the newspaper after working around the house, the sweat was pouring and I was very uncomfortable. Yes I have air-conditioning but choose not to us it until later in the afternoon, because I’m cheap and all alone anyway. So I decided to go into the pool and relieve my misery.

That first venture into the water for the summer season is always the toughest, no matter how hot and humid it is. The body has two choices, one is just to go onto the diving board and plow right in, or dive right in as they say, or you can take the sniveling, cowardly way and slowly wade in, a little at a time, slowly submerged up to your hips on the shallow end like a little sissy, and maybe, just maybe have the courage eventually to dip down all the way. That is not the manly way to do it! Someday I will try to dive right in.

Of course once you are acclimated to the pool temperature, you look around to see if any nosey neighbors are looking, then you look around the pool and the rest of the property and feel guilty that you are indeed in the pool while there are things to do, but you remind yourself that there are poor people working right now in an office, putting up with crap, bosses and or insolent underlings, maybe in a stuffy conference room answering questions on why a project is late while you enjoy freedom! That plus the fact that you just paid a few hundred clams to open the thing up and get it ready so you CAN feel guilty.

Now TLW (The Little Woman) never goes into the pool. She would rather die than be caught in her swimsuit. She hasn’t been in the pool since at least since my daughter lived at home, about a good 20 years ago. She has NEVER been in the newly dug and rebuilt pool ever. This of course astounds me as we do have it fenced in with bushes about shoulder high around the outer two edges.

Although the pool can be a lot of work with the upkeep of chemical levels, it is not all that bad, and the robot, that resembles a submergible tank that can climb walls and clean. One of the greater pleasures is to barbeque a steak, smelling the cooking while you lounge in a float with a gin and tonic. That my friends is the beginning of heaven as we know it.

And so I will once more brave the heat of early afternoon and venture out to the pool where I will get my money’s worth and think about the poor workers. Think I’ll splash a little too.