These dolphin days of summer
My whole life, I’ve heard this particular nugget of the year called the Dog Days of Summer meaning, nothing is really going on.
Who says there’s nothing going on during the summer?
In fact, after this week I may start calling it the Dolphin Days of summer. You’ll see why.
First,
last week I spilled half of a fresh bladder-buster sized sweet tea in my lap while travelling 75 mph down US 287.
I managed to take an exit while throwing handfuls of ice out the window and make it to a truck stop.
I walked through the store looking like the Creature from the Black Lagoon with bladder incontinence, and decided to walk with pride because I would hopefully never see these people again.
Once in the bathroom I borrowed a ream of paper towels to sop up the tea in the driver’s seat, and a stranger in the bathroom advised me to dry from my waist to my knees using the air hand dryer. Thank you, stranger.
Good times.
Then,
I watched the start of the 2020 2021 whatever Olympics Opening Ceremony with the shirtless and well-oiled Pita Taufatofua, the Olympic flag-bearer from Tonga, who made me a sudden and enthusiastic fan of Olympic Taekwondo.
I also love gymnastics (not having any smack talk about Simone Biles - she is the GOAT); and now swimming, running, skateboarding, some fencing, a smattering of synchronized diving and did I mention Taekwondo?
Eventhough it is unlike any other Olympics I’ve seen in my life - and I’ve seen many - I probably appreciate this one more than any other, even if it is 2021 and everything in Japan says it’s 2020 and I know the time difference isn’t that great.
I’m a huge homer, and I love me some USA. But to see an athlete from the Phillipines or Bermuda win their country’s first ever medal in the Olympics reminds me we are all of one world.
While I was sitting around nerding out over the Olympics and wondering what year I’m in, some of my friends were actually having a life.
Meanwhile,
one of them texted during my Olympic extravaganza while she was on vacation with her family on the Texas Coast. I’ve mentioned this friend here before (her initials are Shawnee), so it won’t surprise anyone to know she couldn’t control herself in a potentially tragic situation which is one of the reasons I love her so much.
Her entire family, which includes seven adults and five small children, went on a dolphin watching excursion in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend.
As I can attest using as examples construction mud and football stadium nacho cheese, if Shawnee is anywhere in the area something sketchy is most likely going to happen. It’s almost uncanny.
As luck and history would have it, their excursion boat ran into a yacht, “going into the harbor full speed and never hitting the brake,” followed by her tiny granddaughter screaming at the captain, “YOU CRASHED THE BOAT!”
You can laugh, no one was hurt and there was little damage.
Except her kids were upset with her for scream laughing after they collided because she had said to her son-in-law just before the collision, “How funny would it be if we hit that boat?”
They saw one dolphin, by the way.
Embrace these dolphin days of summer – you never know what you’ll gain if you pay attention, whether it be a new friend in a truck stop bathroom; a vast appreciation for the cultural clothing of other countries; or a laugh right when you need one.
