A Summer's Tale

To break up the bleak winter scene now upon us, now that the happy holidays are over, here is a fun story with slightly embarrassing pictures that will hopefully spread some warm summer cheer.

Once upon a time, a few months ago, I flew out to New York to visit my sister and her husband. We had six fun-filled days full of laughter and shopping and good food. The weather was perfect: Mid-70s, and when it rained, we were in stores or underground, and the humidity was perfectly reasonable. It was an excellent trip.

But on one particular day, a Sunday afternoon, we decided to take a picnic to Prospect Park and people watch under a shady tree. We ate purple pizza and played Pictionary while polishing off a pair of pungent prickly pears. (Okay, I'm kidding about the purple pizza. But I felt I had to continue the P theme that developed in the first sentence. And now that I think about it, we really should have played Pictionary under the shady tree. That's totally something we'd do.)

Anyway, whilst people watching and picnicking, we were surprised by a few small seeds that seemed to be falling more and more frequently from the tree above. We imagined some squirrel or other little rodent eating something up there and dropping the seeds in the trash (a.k.a. on us).

We almost started to think this was a little bit charming. We could picture a fuzzy little squirrel in a tree, eating a lunch of nuts and berries on a warm summer day. How idyllic!

But then something heavier and definitely squishier than a seed fell directly onto my arm while I was talking.

This:


Upon further investigation (it didn't take long), we decided it was poo. Squirrel poo is not charming; it is gross. And squirrel poo on your arm is even worse.

So my sister pulled out my camera to document this humorous rodent-poo-on-my-arm incident, forcing me to sit still and keep the poo on my arm even longer. (I KNOW that the hantavirus was slowly being absorbed into my skin, at this point.) But just as she did so, another one dropped on my right shoulder, and she captured this photographic gem:


Ah, I love it when a picture captures my innate photogenic nature, double chin and all.

And to top it off, a little poo fell on my sister's husband as well — while he was sleeping, no less. But at least he had a layer of jacket between his bare skin and the hantavirus. (I hope he doesn't hate me for posting these pictures, but don't you love his homemade eye/sleep mask? It seems so characteristic of him.)



Anyway, these pictures remind me of that warm, pastoral day at the park last summer ... and the poo on my arm. And the picture that captured my instantaneous true feelings about having excrement dropped on me for the second time, however unflattering, still brings a smile to my face.

The end.