I have been receiving the periodical "Country Living" for about a year now. When I see the magazine sitting inside my mailbox cube, I start to hyperventilate. This morning over badly made tap-water coffee by Tim, as I was perusing the pages my heart rate started climbing. Why would a magazine do this to me? Because inside illustrated beautifully lays pictures of summer dining under colorful dainty lights, carefree beach picnics, tables adorned with mounds of dahlias and hydrangeas and big whitewashed homes full of colorful pottery. I hate summer.
My magazine this morning didn't disappoint, in big white giant font it reads "carefree summer living" and is filled with pictures of non-sweating people sitting in lawn chairs under big green trees sipping homemade lemonade and eating biscuits with ripe red berry jam. Do real people actually live like this?
It's 6:30 am and I've just come in the house from chlorine testing my 85 degree pool water, I'm already sweating and annoyed. Ok ok, I have a pool so stop my bitching right? Wrong, the pool is so warm I could do my dishes in it, my roses are brown and really angry at the heat and my lawn is crisp. I miss the seasons! I want summer when it's supposed to be summer, I want fall, I want to wear a sweater in October and bundle up by a fire. I want to hang Christmas lights in the snow.
Back to my magazine, I'm cancelling my subscription today. I can't take it anymore, those pictures of gardens full of flowers that grow in normal soil not alkaline clay that cactus thrive in and women frolicking at the beach carrying old picnic baskets filled with homemade bread and cooked crabs they pulled in from their G.D. homemade nets and roasted on their outdoor pits.
ENOUGH. I slow my breathing down and gently explain to myself, "you can survive another summer that only rattlesnakes and lizards enjoy," "you can climb into a car that melts the skin off your thighs," "you can hibernate in your house, leaving only for food and supplies," "you can hear people say for the umpteenth effin time, 'wow, sure is hot outside.'"
6 comments:
I totally agree, you know I do. We Phoenecians are all stupid and crazy for being here. And only people who live in Seattle or Maine have homes like the ones in that unrealistic magazine! And no one anywhere makes fresh homemade biscuits with homemade strawberry jam. That's what I will tell myself.
All winter long I yearn for the warm summer sun. Then when that time finally comes I am cursing at the 100 degree weather and my dying flowers. I totally hear you.
I think my mom has the right idea up in Seattle.
I love the new header. You do have a fantistically creative daughter.
I'm so sorry for your pain.... I remember when I (insanely) visited you in AZ during JULY.... OMG, we literally ran from the house to the car, and from the car to the mall.
You're a PISCES for heavens sake! What the hell are you doing living in a desert????
Can I tell you, again, how much I absolutely LOVE living in the northwest :)
It did climb above 80 the past couple of days (and I whined), but today shouldn't get above 77 - and will stay below that all week. My flower garden is in beautiful bloom (though I'm still fighting off slugs) including a field of wild foxglove behind my condo....
I think you should move here! Or at least make a visit - during summer!
This proves my theory that People and Entertainment Weekly are the only magazines worth reading.
It's 74 degrees here today. Hope on a plane and come visit.
Thanks for rubbing it in! We are going to Flagstaff this weekend where it is around 83.
Post a Comment