marriedtothesea.com
If I ever make a fortune writing (and with a master's in education, that's the only way I'm going to make a fortune barring a lottery jackpot or getting run over by a rich guy), I'm going to buy a summer house up north, in the Adirondacks region of New York. Significant Other and I are going up there over July 4 week along with some old friends of mine to enjoy a few days of liquor, sleeping in, and bocce in and around an old farmhouse a few hundred yards from Lake Champlain.
Besides the relaxation, the primary benefit of staying up in the mountains is avoiding the damn heat. Jersey is a crowded, smelly furnace in the summer, and the only wise course of action is to get the hell out, preferably until the leaves start turning. I mention this only because it was 92 degrees today, and it has drained the life out of me. Significant Other has been complaining for months that she's always cold and I'm always comfortable. Well, soon the tables will be turned.
In my mind, it's always summer here. Whenever I imagine Jersey, it's always a blazing July day; cloudless, sticky, so hazy the horizon is white. Deserted sidewalks lining jammed roads so wide they wouldn't be shaded even if there were any trees growing there. Weeks without rain, with no relief in sight. Water restrictions. A steady death count from Camden and Philadelphia, where old people bake in tar-roofed rowhouses. I never imagine the winter, even though it can get bitter cold and stay that way for weeks (never enough snow, though). The cold doesn't stick in the mind the way the heat does. Maybe that's why I have no love of the Sun Belt or anyplace else that doesn't get a proper winter. I need the winter to recharge my batteries, to get myself psychically prepared for summer again.
Or I could just go play bocce in the mountains. Whatever works.
2 comments:
Maybe that's why I have no love of the Sun Belt or anyplace else that doesn't get a proper winter. I need the winter to recharge my batteries, to get myself psychically prepared for summer again.
I think this is the part where I'm supposed to insert some shtick about global warming and how even New Jersey might not get winters soon.
If we ever stop global warming, though, I think New Jersey could get in on the skiing market. You could open some resorts on the landfills, with chair lifts and everything. People would ski down them and try to ignore the smell and the fact that they accidentally speared a two-year-old Big Mac with one of their ski poles.
There's a landfill in my town that would make a GREAT sledding hill. The methane vents would add excitement in the form of obstacles to avoid. The REALLY fun part would come at the bottom of the hill, where the landfill butts against a busy highway.
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