May 05 2008
Sam and the Peninsula
It’s a gorgeous looking day. The sky is that amazing light blue with really high, wispy clouds and the trees across the street are busting out in leaves and flowers. I have absolutely no desire to be sitting here looking at this pile of expense report receipts that I have to submit while I wait for my next meeting to start.
I want to be outside, laying in the peninsula hammock with a good book - drifting off to sleep with the birds chirping and the breezes blowing through my toes. A nice glass of wine on the table next to me - some kind of instrumental music playing softly in the distance - near enough to hear and enjoy, not close or loud enough to be distracting. Vaguely aware of the donkeys that live behind us braying every once in a while. It’s such a happy sort of sound….especially when mixed with the nicker of the horses.
Wait, what? You’ve never heard a hammock referred to as a peninsula? Snort. Seriously? C’mon. Snirk.
Okay, then. Let me tell you about Sam and the Peninsula -
Once upon a time, in a little suburban neighborhod made up of small, tidy homes and small, tidy yards, the Hotfessional family had neighbors that they hung around with. The best next door neighbors in the world (BNDNITW) had three kids. Boy1, Boy2, and Girl. Boy 1 and Shortman were nearly the exact same age (within 3 days.) Boy 2 was a couple of years younger. Girl’s name was Sam.
Sam hadn’t yet started Kindergarten when this happened. It was summer - that gorgeous kind of summer day when the sun is up until 9:30 at night and the temperature is in the 80’s and no one has baseball or soccer or work to deal with. Hot dogs and hamburgers are everyone’s favorite food - the sound of the ice cream man brings joy to all hearts.
On one of those very special days, the Hotfessionals and the BNDNITW were outside having a cookout and drinking lots of beer water. The adults, Sam, and Poopy the Puppy were on the Hotfessional side of the fence. Poopy the Puppy was most likely sacked out in the shade - and the boys (Shortman, B1 and B2) were playing basketball in BNDNITW’s backyard. The grill was going - the cooler was full. It was all shangri-la and hummingbirds and butterflies.
Boy 2 decided to take a break and come over to the Hotfessional side of the fence. He climbed onto the hammock. Poopy the Puppy jumped into the hammock with him (which, actually, is a snort-worthy sight all by itself). They snuggled down together and looked very content, if a bit, oh y’know, weird.
Sam, who had been sitting on her mother’s lap, suddenly looked at all of us and announced:
“I want the peninsula.”
We looked at each other. What the fuck? We all know that “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you”, and crappe, but none of us could figure out how to wrap up the State of Michigan and hand it over to this spoiled-ass rotten absolutely adorable four-year-old.
Sam’s mom looked at her and said, “Huh?”
“I want the peninsula. Now.”
The adults looked at each other and shrugged. Obviously the beer water and the sun were playing tricks with our heads and we were rendered incapable of understanding. Mr. Hot was willing to risk the wrath of all 3 feet 4 inches of blondeness as he bent closer to her. “What honey? What do you want?”
Sam straightened up and looked him in the eyes. She smiled her sweet little smile and twisted a strand of the pure honey gold hair around her finger.
Y’all? You know the kind of lung capacity a 4-year-old has? Of course you do. Well, imagine it here.
“I want the damned peninsula! Now!!!!! “
and she pointed. At the hammock.
“I want to sit up there with Skeetah* on the damned peninsula!”
The force of the soundwaves knocked her brother off of the hammock and sent Poopy the Puppy flying for cover behind the garage.
All of the adults (except Sam’s saintly mother, who knew better was trying desperately to teach her daughter that the correct word was “hammock” and not “peninsula”) stood up, walked over to the side of the house where Sam couldn’t possibly see us and laughed hysterically.
She knew, though. Oh, did she ever know. And from her perch up on the hammock peninsula, when we re-congregated back on the deck, she told Mr. Hot, in no uncertain terms.
“Now, I want Skeetah up here in the peninsula with me so I can lay with him like mah brutha did.”
—- I’m still disappointed that they didn’t follow us when we moved to Ann Arbor - I miss the weekends hanging out, the shared dinners when we cooked too much, or they did. I miss the game nights and the trips to Tiger games. But whatever else, that thing will forever after be known as the peninsula. —-
HOT LOVE
