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Senses of Summer

Last post I used a movie metaphor from "Enemy at the Gates." This motivated me to rewatch the movie. I was impressed the first time I saw it, but over time I have come to appreciate it more.

Those British actors are so good! The whole team was good. But my focus is on the work of the screenwriter. That is a job that doesn't usually come real high in the hierarchy of credits, but to me it is what makes the movie fun. 

Perhaps some of us just don't have an appetite for the sheer verbosity of a book. But we can love ideas transformed into moving images.

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The other day I met a professional painter who said he was going to paint every single one of the national parks. So there were two things I had no appreciation of.

He showed me a couple samples. It would have been great to know something about his medium. I feigned an interest in his paintings but he could probably see right through me.

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Being hedonistically-challenged in the eyeballs, I can compensate in other ways. Think of a hot summer day in your youth, when you heard that your mother was getting lemonade ready -- with all those wonderful ice cubes floating around in it! Or when you let a popsicle melt in your mouth a little, and sucked some of the sugary juice out of it.

Or maybe you were shocked how cool and refreshing a room-temperature watermelon seemed.


 But this is nostalgia, the Past. Somebody who isn't dead yet wants to think of good things in the Present. Here is one: I am back to wearing sockless sandals again, in order to enjoy summer better. My goodness, feet do get dirty in sandals. They hardly seem part of human anatomy.

A friend turned me on to "taking my ablutions," that is, washing the feet in a bucket. It is fun to make a pseudo-religious ritual out of it. How morally redeemed you feel after flossing between the toes with a cold soapy wash rag! (Scotch-Brite works better.)

Seriously, room temperature water is surprisingly effective in cooling down the feet. Why didn't I make a ritual of this, years ago?

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