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A New Kind of Groundhog Day!
May 16, 2011 Beauty and body
Friday evening my husband came home late from his golf game to find me on the couch in my pajamas, halfway through both a bottle of wine and the pilot episode of NYPD Blue.  “Hi sweetie,” I said happily, as if I hadn’t seen this episode many times before, “Sipowicz got shot!  Oooh, look: You tell Alphonse Giardella that John Kelly is looking for him.  JOHN KELLY.”  Which is to say, it’s the start of a new season: golf season.  Every golf season I opportunistically support my husband in his endeavours on the golf course so I can delve into my box sets of NYPD Blue. 
I then slept for nine and a half hours, since Mark’s cough has subsided significantly.  After this epic sleep I looked at my suddenly well rested face in the mirror and decided that I could not live another minute in my orange haired state, applied the temporary colour, and instantly boosted my own self worth.
My glowing feelings from rest and a non-orange hair colour were only exacerbated by the sunshine and suddenly seasonal temperatures.  It was so sunny and seasonal, in fact, that my neighbour appeared in all his shirtless glory to mow his lawn. 
A friend posted a cute quote the other day: “Your mind is a garden, your thoughts the seeds; you can plant flowers, or you can plant weeds.”  Brilliant, in its own saccharine way!  I read that and thought, YES.  I am going to plant a fucking ROSE GARDEN.  And I am, people, I am.
So when I saw my neighbour, clad only in red cutoff sweatpants, backwards baseball cap, and gigantic running shoes, I thought: ROSES.  It occurred to me that his shirtless appearance is Groundhog Day-like in nature; not like the Bill Murray movie, although I do seem to comment about his man boobs every single year.  No, I thought that he is like a groundhog himself, because when he emerges from his house with his lawn mower and his shorts, he is ushering in a new season, the season of sunshine and happiness and also golf and NYPD Blue box sets.  So I cheer him, my groundhoggy, shirtless neighbour. 
It also does not escape my attention that I am a complete hypocrite.  If he looked like, let’s say, Mark Wahlberg or even that Old Spice guy, I would not dream of complaining.  So, in the interest of not judging someone based on appearance, which is a very non-yogic and distasteful thing to do, I am going to applaud his tremendous self confidence and his prediction of a lovely spring.
Also, I am not faultless in inadvertent overexposure.  The other day I was bent over, gardening in the front yard, and I stood up and saw the young, awkward, twenty-ish fellow across the street standing beside his car, staring at me.  I smiled and waved and he said hello in a quick and strange way, before getting in his car and driving off quickly.  I thought not much of it, until I saw my reflection in the front window.  Two words: whale tail.  So I’m not really bringing up the classy in the neighbourhood. 
Roses, people.  Let’s plant some flowers.
"7" Comments
  1. I was promised embarrassing! I want real wardrobe malfunctions!

    Okay, I’m going to start planting seeds with you. Although, I’ve always been very taken with the quote “The difference between a weed and a flower is a choice.” or any of the variations on the quote.

  2. I kind of wish my husband played golf now so that he would have something to do on the weekends.

    I love roses. I hope you share some pics of that rose garden after you plant it.

  3. Um…I don’t know what ‘whale tail’ means. But yeah, whatever, I’ll plant some damn flowers if it ever stops raining enough to do it without drowning. I’m grumpy.

  4. That’s a very enlightened view you have about Mr No Shirt. Maybe he’s hoping to inspire you to do a little topless gardening? You could be no-shirt-gardening BUDDIES!!!!

  5. I don’t know if this means I’m totally out of it, but I had to look up Whale Tail on Wikipedia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_tail). I need to start reading the Urban Dictionary more often.

  6. I had to look up whale tail, too! #oldfart

    We have a shirtless neighbor, too! And he is fit, for a dad, but, dude. Put it away! I’m getting too old and prissy to see half naked people in my backyard. #oldfart

  7. I applaud *your* self confidence…if the gardening incident had happened to me I would be forced to never leave the house again, unless of course I had a bag over my head.

    You almost make me wish I were a golf widow – my poor Buffy box sets have sat unwatched for a couple of years now. Poor, poor Buffy.

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