LOOKING FOR SUMMER? HERE ARE SOME HINTS
Well now, looky here! It’s almost that time of the year when winter is back in five months, give or take a power failure. The official start of summer depends on where you live.
In Newfoundland: Never. In Iceland, that aptly named floating frosty in the North Atlantic, the First Day of Summer is a national holiday held on the first Thursday after April 18. Then they return to winter.
In the West Island, summer officially arrives when construction workers drop their tools and abandon heavy machinery in the middle of busy thoroughfares and leave the province for three weeks.
Since we basically go from winter to summer (give or take a climate fart called spring) here is my list of 30 indicators that été est ici. I wash my car and don’t need a scraper to remove the water. My cat starts eating my lawn as if it were a field of catnip. And it no longer sits in my living room pointing at the thermostat. I can open my windows without needing an ice pick to hack through the glaciers on my sills. I no longer have goosebumps that prevent me from putting on a shirt. I can back my car out of the driveway because it is no longer pinned there by icicles. I don’t wear socks. My yard is an ant farm. Christmas sales begin. I don’t wear six sweaters to barbecue. (Being able to drink beer outside is the only reason I barbecue.) Barbie ski wear is off the Toys “R” Us shelves. The highways are deserted because people are rotating their tires. I sit on my back porch in a Hawaiian shirt rooting for the bug zapper every time it gets a hit. The last bit of snow is off my lawn so I can fertilize. I flag down taxis to boost my seasonally seized lawn mower. I stand alone on Oka beach holding a volleyball waiting for takers for a doubles match. I wander the West Island because I can’t make up my mind about which restaurant patio to pick (none of which, by the way, were chosen for the top list in Montreal by a Montreal Gazette writer who will remain nameless. Shame on you, Lesley).
I remember my kids are grown up and I don’t have to take them to a water park, an accident waiting to happen. I watch my favourite summer movie Beach Blanket Bingo on my VCR (what?). My dehumidifier suddenly wakes up in a cold sweat. I live in garden centres, buying dirt, which by the way is not dirt cheap. I can kiss a frost fence and not get my lips stuck to it. (Not that I do this as a habit, often.) Cumulonimbus-like clouds of steam no longer billow out of my mouth when I step outside. Cold salads replace hot soups. I can go to the bathroom without having to warm it up for an hour first. My favourite shows are on: Reruns. The sun doesn’t rise and set 10 minutes apart like you’re on some alien planet. My neighbours take down their Christmas lights (which they put back up a week later). I shed my long underwear and no longer walk around the house looking like a hillbilly. (Although naked is not any prettier in my case.) That damn Mungo Gerry song is played over and over again: In the Summertime.
30: (This spot reserved for your suggestion.)