on a Wednesday afternoon. Everyone else in town is at work in the salt mine or slaving under the lashes of the schoolmasters, and you are taking a "ditch day." In this case "the bosses" decided it would be a bit of a morale lift to kick it this afternoon for an office picnic. The weather was perfect - just the tonic as the days are getting shorter. What say we to busting out the burgers, dogs, potato salad, "beverages" and a little "friendly" game of touch football?
Forgot to bring my camera to work this morning - it's amazing enough I get myself to work in one piece. No matter, this google earth pic is just about exactly what we experienced - even the lack of crowds. At the top of this picture is the Pacific Ocean, and this oasis of a park the park is the SW corner of Mission Bay Park. The inlet is the Mission Bay Channel. Mission Bay Park is the largest man-made aquatic park in the country, consisting of 4,235 acres, approximately 46% land and 54% water.
Maybe it's me, but there's something slightly intoxicating about the smell of clothing, hair and skin imbued with smoke from the grill, sunshine and just a little sand and grit. It's the Chanel of nature.
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5 comments:
The smell of smoke from the grill, like the smell of the sun on tomato plants will always, for me, be the smell of summer.
In my case, it would be the smell of tobacco smoke.
Sorry if that offends the non smokers.
For me, the Chanel of nature includes the aroma of a King Edward corona.
It's all very well to take the afternoon off to have a picnic in sunny California.
Here in England, you'd have to wait for the rain to stop, or have your picnic indoors.
But, yes, I'm all for a bit of decadence.
Completely off topic :
Hello Karen,
I just dropped in to say hello. I saw your message in Father Ray's combox.
Yes, I agree. In my case, insomnia goes in a pattern of two weeks on / two weeks off.
Why don't I blog ?
Because I haven't got anything to blog about, I suppose.
I'll stick to commenting.
While I'm here, can I read some of your other posts ?
I've not visited before.
Peter
The thing I miss about Seattle is the ocean...and the mountains...and the temperate climate...
When I worked at Boeing, the engineers had a perk called "Per Bus," which stood for Personal Business. In addition to our vacation and sick leave, we had per bus, which was leave with pay. Typically, on a nice sunny afternoon many engineers suddenly had some per bus to attend to. I could use some per bus!!
Sounds like your bosses are pretty cool, as far as bosses go :)
Mom: yes! When I was a girl Harriet the Spy was my favorite book. In it the author described Harriet's favorite sweatshirt as having the smell of summer - ocean, sea, sand and sun -- just inhale it and you thought of summer. Though, I must say sometimes slightly more smokey plus a different smell (pine?) would equate to fall in my mind.
Peter: of COURSE -- feel free to read all the blogs and comments. There's a good friend of mine for whom I'm sure a hefty scent of a cigar would be a perquisite for his own heady elixir. And don't be sure about "not doing anything." Some people lead a rich interior life! Am I imagining, or was there some popular song some time ago that mentioned "picnics in the rain."
SwissMiss: When I worked for SAIC we had every other Friday off and worked nine hour days the other days of the week. (I was assigned to NRaD - Navy Research and Development - and we followed their schedule.) Terrific. And then we had two "personal" days off a year.
Hello again, Karen.
Your friend with the cigars sounds like a very sensible man.
A popular song about rain ?
Well, I'm not THAT old, but I can think of three :
(Please don't groan too loudly. Remember I'm not an American)
Gene Kelly, "Singin' in the rain" (in 1952, I think).
Bing Crosby crooning "Every time it rains" (Pennies From Heaven, 1936)
Joan Baez and the 1960s protest song "What have they done to the rain".
I googled for songs about rain and found a website which lists nearly 800 popular songs on the subject.
I'll go and do some in depth research ...
Peter from England
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