I walked downstairs to follow my Parisian morning routine that I've had for the past 2 years - just adding a few tweaks. Instead of putting the kettle on to make a powdered NesCafé, I warmed up the Nespresso machine (fancy times chez Mom), listened to Nova Radio streaming from the internet instead of the crusty radio that I found under the sink in my flat and the fresh air from my tiny chambre de bonne windows that offer rooftop views was swapped out for enjoying my breakfast in my purple bathrobe à la terrasse in my Mom's backyard.
About an hour later my Mom came down, just as the caffeine was sufficiently running through my veins and I was awake enough for me to listen to her recap The New York Post's page 6 gossip. Since she's been on a health kick these days, instead of skipping breakfast like she's had for the past 20 years, she joined me on the deck with her daily lemon water, soy Super Greens drink and a more-than-daily Marlboro Light. She's trying. Today she had a surprise for me and told me to go do my errands that needed to be done before leaving for The Bahamas tomorrow and it will be waiting for me at the house when I got back. I love surprises, especially my Mom's surprises that generally come in forms of food and/or wine and spirits. I went to the bank and discovered that my American ATM card gives me the prompts and receipt in French. Out of curiosity, I asked the teller why and he said that it had been changed to my default language, most likely by me. My default language? I blew it off to it probably being a drunk dial to my bank during my quest for full immersion. I don't remember doing it but it's not entirely out of question.After making the necessary stops, I pulled up my Mom's driveway to find her in a purple crochet bikini and paint-stained Timberland work boots skimming a plastic blow up baby pool. My mind didn't know where to comment first; the baby pool, the skimmer or the work boots. The work boots I was actually familiar with. She puts them on when ever she goes into her adjacent garage to pull out rusty manly things like the lawn mower and rakes, and in this case secret blow up baby pools and her bikini is her default outfit for the summer. Her ensemble brought me back to the 8th grade and my high school crush showed up after school to smoke pot with my brother and my Mother was gardening in said ensemble with a walkman on her ears and singing Madonna's "Burnin' Up". A cappella. I was mortified. It was nice to see that things hadn't changed since 1994.
I called up my best friend since 5th grade, Kitty to go "swimming" with me. She showed up 20 minutes later with a magnum of Pinot Grigio. When in Rome.
3 glasses of wine in the baby pool later, where we were splashing around like seals and I was entertaining myself by threatening to shake the contents of the skimmer onto Kitty when our attention got diverted by the sounds of children. My next door neighbors Ryan and Frankie Jr. romping around on their tricked out 2011 slip n' slide. Buzzed off Pinot, we saw no problem or potential Mrs. Robinson creepiness in asking them if we can come over and play. Cocktails in hand. Before waiting for them to grant us admission we were well into their backyard, ready to take over their Summer equipment. I decided to go first and being a wimp and not wanting to make a running head start, I did a half-ass flop and my stomach slammed against the plastic runway as I flopped up and down. I could feel the fat in the back of my legs ripple in waves. The view that these poor boys have would be traumatizing enough to add 4 more years to their viriginity. Sorry fellas.
Kitty was smart and did the instructed running head start and charged towards the slip n' slide screaming "Hey you guys!" à la The Goonies. The result of her head start had her cruising down the slip n' slide like a pro. She capped off her performance on her stomach in the winner's pool doing stationed scuba movement while growling like a lion. Did I mention that like me, she will be 30 in a month? When we are together, we revert back to 5th grade where we try to out do each other on who can act like a bigger idiot. In this case she won. I am normally the reigning champion but I'm blaming my lack of game on jetlag. Ryan and Frankie Jr. were not amused. I can only imagine what they were thinking in their little pre-teen heads; a bunch of weird drunk ladies stampeded through their backyard playing with their toys while making strange noises. Accurate enough.After a few attempts to slip and then slide without killing ourselves, we decided to relax in the winner's pool with our cocktails when their Dad, Frankie Sr. showed up who didn't even flinch that we were enjoying alcohol beverages in his children's summer toys. Every time I have seen him since my 21st birthday he likes to make a crack that it's 5 o'clock somewhere encouraging me to drink because it's always cocktail hour. It's come to a point where we can't not mention that we should be getting sloshed because it's 5 o'clock. Somewhere. A few Summers ago, he even went as far as to by my Mom a multi colored windmill from the Jersey Shore that says just that and she wanted to kill me because I provoked it. So now every Summer for the past 7 years, she feels obligated to put it out on her deck to show her appreciation. She hates this thing but over the years it has become the official mascot that kicks off Summer. Summers on Long Island wouldn't be the same without it.
