May 27, 2016 3 min read

It was just around the corner. It just took a long time to round that corner. Summer is here.

Monday night I drove down Banksville Road and noticed they put water in the Dormont pool. You know how the dog gets really excited in the car when you near the park entrance? That was me. I scrabbled around the car, saying out loud, to absolutely no one, “The pool has water in it. The pool has water in it.” It was shimmering, glistening and blue. It was also about 60 degrees out that night, but it didn’t matter. The pool has water in it.

I’m a summer person. I like walking barefoot in the grass. I like to spread out on a beach towel and read a book. I like to jump and splash around in the pool like a drunk manatee. I like fresh air wafting through my bedroom. I would hug a tree, if I didn’t mind getting bits of bark on my new shirt.

I’d write a poem to summer if I could write poems. For those of you who think my humor writing is horrible, you should read my poetry. My poetry is like Ipecac. It induces vomiting.

I can think of very few downsides to the season. OK. There’s the added noise pollution. If you’ve ever had a neighbor rev their lawn mower at seven in the morning on a Sunday, you share my pain. Ten extra demerits if he also has a leaf blower.

When I lived in Los Angeles, the apartment had a gardener who would use a metal rake to clear leaves from the sidewalk. Imagine the sound of metal scraping along on the cement. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. Why he was there doing it on a Sunday at 7 a.m. is beyond me. It took every ounce of restraint to not chuck my alarm clock out the window. Any heavy object from the nightstand would have been sufficient, provided I hit him on the head.

There’s another noise of summer I don’t like. The windows are rolled down and I am hearing other people’s music at the stoplight. I don’t want to hear your music. I don’t want your sounds to overpower my sounds. If I wanted to listen to (place name of famous country singer here), I would have tuned in to (place name of country radio station here). I’m over here learning about the town of Humansdorp in South Africa from Ari Shapiro and Audi Cornish (no, I didn’t make up the name of the town or the people). But I can’t hear about the life and times of three-time Olympic athlete Cornelia Bürki (from Humansdorp) because someone done someone wrong in the back of a pickup truck (or whatever).

Let’s get back to the sounds I love. I love the booming noises of firecrackers. I love the sound of laughter as kids run around in the backyard. I love the sound of water gently lapping up against the side of the pool.

Did I mention the pool has water in it? Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone.