She's lucky I'm not the lady-punching type

Everyone has their morning routine. Every morning, exactly nine minutes before my alarm is set to go off, the rooster Rooney crawls up to my face and starts nibbling on my ears to wake me up. I throw on some clothes and head out to take him for his morning walk.

I've had no caffeine, my hair is all sorts of wild, and I'm never wearing a bra. This has the potential to be awkward depending on the season, but it's not like I'm going to put on a bra to walk around the block before I even take a shower and what do you take me as?

Without fail, we see the same people, at the same time, at the same places every day.

As I leave the front yard, the guy in his massive black Hummer that probably costs him more to drive to work than I would spend on a pair of jeans but I'm not judging pulls up to the parking lot across the street. When I hit the corner, the Septa bus goes blowing by. Half way down the block, the old man who power walks every morning passes us, and always stops to say hello.

A few steps later, I pass the small man who always wears a hat in the winter and his morning greeting of, hey, doggie as he bends down to give him a pat on the head without breaking stride.

At the next corner, the nervous man who hunches and always wears short sleeve button-down shirts and a pocket protector in the summer and a puffy jacket in the winter passes, but doesn't stop to pet the dog. He also doesn't say hello unless I say it first. You know the type?

Half way down the next block, the large woman who likes to take morning walks goes by. She usually stops to pet the pup too, and talks to him in that high-pitched baby talk the entire time.

When lady-walker did turn her attention to me this morning, she commented on the beautiful weather and thank gawd the heat is gone. So I punched her in the face. Just kidding. I'm not really the lady-puncher type. But I did make some kind of gurgling ack sound and explained that actually I'm a summer person as I yanked Rooney off of her leg because did I mention that he humps everything that moves these days?

And when I say I'm a summer person, I think that deserves a bit more of an explanation. My entire life revolves around the summer. Once Labor Day hits, I spend the next nine months fantasizing about next Memorial Day.

Yea, the fall and the cool weather and beautiful trees and blah blah blah blah. You know what the fall is? The fall is impending doom. The fall is steadily decreasing daylight and temperatures. The fall is goodbye, bathing suits, see you next year, beach days, I'll miss you, sunlight. The fall means no more weekends down the shore so I'll probably have to finally do something like clean out the closet or go rug shopping or oh my gah learn how to sew buttons back on all my shirts that are missing buttons.

Now that it does feel like fall is here, at least in temperature, it's only a matter of time before the freezing temperatures come and all the joy of walking to and from work and going on jogs and walking the dog and leaving my apartment for any reason whatsoever is sucked from my life while winter's icy arms wrap around me and hump my head.

Did I mention I'm a summer person?



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