Various

Summer is holding us tightly in its hot, drippy claws.
I’m over my annual disconsolation that the county fair is almost over, the fleeting, melancholy event that leaves its participants exhausted and the neighbors longing for normalcy.

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BMI

Maybe I’ve been watching too many episodes of “House”, in which putting patients into a coma and causing them to feel extreme pain are standard diagnostic tools, but I’m getting even more paranoid about things medical.
So, when the local news reported that the sins of being overweight include making it tough to read X-rays, I computed my BMI.

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I’m Here – They’re Not

Last night, I participated in a history walk which was a delight save the presence of a couple of the worst kind of tourons – the kind who currently live off-Cape, but whirl their “we grew up here” territoriality around like a spiked mace.

I must have heard that stupid phrase at least a dozen times in the course of 90 minutes.

I’ll take 15 tourists from New York to one such inarticulate, defensive, inbred jingoist any day.

In fact, at one point this summer, I was so fed up with these yokel types that I planted myself at “New Yorkers on vacation” central, the Popponessett marketplace, just for a welcome breath of civility.

I have one message for the bumptious couple who I had the misfortune to encounter last night: I live here. You don’t. I vote and pay taxes here. You never have. So take your ignorant, backwater, “Southie (or in this case, Bourne) is my home town” attitude and shove it up your basses.

Into the Woods

There was supposed to be a nature walk at the Childs River Conservation Area less than one minute from my house; until today, I’d not known it was there.

The walk must have been cancelled, but I got to do a little off-roading this morning, heading southwest on well-packed dirt roads until I reached asphalt again in Waquoit.
There wasn’t much to see, woods and old bogs, but I located another spot that’s supposed to have good trout fishing for Bob and me, the Quashnet River Area on Martin Road off Falmouth Road.

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Explaining It All

In a page with banner ads “Still caught in the cycle of depression?” and “Find a Therapist Near You” is an old (July/August 2001, but reviewed in May of this year) article entitled “Why I Hate Beauty“.

It explains something I’ve suspected about Cape Cod employers but have never seen documented, i.e., why young, attractive people ALWAYS get hired, regardless of the job and their qualifications.

This is a tourist area and as a result, a slew of college students descend every summer to take low-paying jobs in restaurants, stores and motels, simply to be able to “hang out” with their pals on the Cape.

Being surrounded by these people, even for only part of the year, employers have developed a sense of ENTITLEMENT: they only want to see the young, the fit, the good-looking in their places of business.
It’s a fact. The psychologists say so. And to bring home the point, they even advertise their services to those of us who are depressed because we don’t fit the bill.

So, THERE.

Summer House

I’m thinking about what makes an ideal summer house, the kind that fosters subliminal memories for years later.
Part of it has to do with the weather, and the light. Today is picture-perfect, not too warm, sunny, a light breeze. If this were 19th century Provence, one would not be surprised to see an Impressionist perched on a wooden chair in a lavender field or a Mediterranean beach.

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Bad Guys Finishing First

Many people were enraged this week when “Kenny Boy” Lay died of a heart attack, thus opening the possibility that both the shareholder class action and SEC lawsuit against Enron could be derailed.
Because Lay died before sentencing, his conviction will probably be erased on the basis that he did not have a chance to appeal, a strange quirk in US law. Since his criminal conviction will be reversed, some pundits have predicted problems ahead with the civil suits.

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