Feel the Heat

Summertime here is hot, hot, hot. The air feels like wet cotton and the plants are growing like the jungle. But there's a certain joy in the overwhelming heat and then more joy in the cool rain when it comes.

For some reason, this year I've been back outside during the good weather. I haven't spent any time actively outdoors since I was, well, definitely before the reading bug kicked in. Long, lazy days on bicycles and in the pool, walking around the neighborhood, waiting for the ice cream truck, forming "exclusive" clubs and having slumber parties in tents in the backyard. You know, kid stuff. Right up through the age of, what? Eighteen? Twenty? Well, definitely into high school before the whole "cruising down the strip" thing took the place of bikes and treehouses.

A few months ago, Rich bought himself a bicycle and he and Kevin have spent hours and hours riding, coming back soaked with sweat and exhausted. Well, Rich has been exhausted. Kevin just comes back in for a drink before going back out to "play" some more while Rich collapses on the couch. But Rich has started looking so good lately and I figured if I went out riding with them perhaps I would benefit in the same way.

So I bought a bike. It's a pretty aqua blue mountain bike, a Huffy, just like back in the good old days. We had to trade out the teeny little seat on it for something that better supports my more, well, womanly, build. But soon after that, one morning when all the neighborhood kids were off at school and it wasn't yet ninety degrees outside, Rich took me on a ride.

We rode, that first day, all through our own subdivision and then through the next one over. All the way up, almost, to the Sheetz store. I had no idea that it was an uphill incline to that store. I couldn't make it that day and we had to turn around and come back. Two days after that we went out again and I managed the hill, went into Sheetz and got my prize: a blue raspberry icee. The three of us sat in the shade and drank our drinks. Cool, refreshing, familial bonding over biking.

It's nice. Nice enough to make me relish slicking on the sunscreen, finding a hat to keep my hair from fading, and actually going outside for exercise. It feels so good I'm trying to talk Rich into resuming our shag dance classes soon.

Hope everyone's summer is starting easy. I have a feeling it's only going to get hotter.....