Summer Times

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Yesterday started like any other day. I took a bath, because I built a house with a large bathtub and I feel like if not me, who, and if not in the morning, then when? I bathed, dried, walked to the closet, and pulled off the hanger some tan pants. I have others in blues and grays but tan was fine. I put a shirt on, drank a cup of coffee that was brewed in an exacting amount of time by my new dutch made, hand built, Technivorm. Technivorm, it bears to mention, has an awful lot of plastic for something hand made. I suppose it should say “hand assembled”, but that sounds so much less expensive. The coffee was better than normal, but only because I willed it to be so in order to justify the Moccamaster, and then, I left the house.

I drove East, because if I drove West I’d drive further from my office, which I plan to do someday, but for the next 30 or so years I’ll probably end up leaving the house and driving East, so that’s what I did yesterday. East past some fledgling corn fields that appear to be well on track to making their knee high by the fourth of July pledge. Past some wheat fields, past a few soybean fields, both of which I’m sure have some target height by the fourth of July but the corresponding body part didn’t sound as nice as knee. Mid-thigh high by the fourth of July never sounded as good. I drove past these fields as I do daily, down past my old high school and then past the other high school, the one that the Village wants to build a $22MM gradeschool next to. And no, I didn’t forget to add a decimal in between the 2s. Past the overgrown field that used to be a pretty golf course, past the exit where I could turn in to view Yerke’s Observatory and its oversized telescope, past Orchard and Oakwood and Williams and Collie and to my office. It was sunny the entire five minute drive.

Next, I sat at my desk for a bit. I returned calls, sent emails, retrieved texts and responded to those as well, and scanned the MLS for new inventory, sold inventory, and interesting price changes ($11.4MM to $10MM is a nice reduction, if it matters to you). My pants were fine at the office, because my faux leather chair is sticky in any humidity, and its best to keep my bare legs away from its synthetic hide. Once the cycle of work was completed, I drove to the mail down the block towards the lake and then North on Walworth Avenue. The sun was higher, still not high, but visible and bright.

I drove directly from the mail to Cafe Calamari, to their lakeside parking lot, directly across from aptly named Edgewater Park. I walked a mostly full box of magazines to the front door, and felt something. I set the box down, and I still felt it. I turned to face the car, and that park, and that lake, and I felt it again. I couldn’t shake it, so I walked to the car, hoping that this condition would go away if I sat down. I turned the car to face south and waited for crossing traffic. It was then that I heard sounds, strange sounds, I scanned for crossing cars, but I saw none, instead I saw things, horrible, strange things, things that I didn’t recognize and things that I wasn’t sure about. I felt strange, things sounded strange, things looked strange. Tuesday was getting strange.

Driving onto Geneva Street towards Cedar Point gave me no relief. The sights were the same as were the sounds, my own physical feeling worsened. I felt something come over me. It wasn’t coldness, but something different. My toes in my sandals weren’t, say, cold, they were something else. I looked to check my complexion in the rear view mirror to see if I was discolored, perhaps pale, but I wasn’t. Instead, I was almost flush, a sign to some that high blood pressure had taken over, but my blood pressure is only moderately high and not yet capable of causing redness. I teetotal better than anyone, so the blossoms on my cheeks had nothing to do with gin. And those sounds! They wouldn’t quit. They drowned out my thoughts. And why can’t I stop this redness in my cheeks? And what is this feeling, this feeling that I can’t describe except to say that it’s nothing like being cold?

I turned away from Cedar Point, rushing back to the relative safety of my office. I wanted to lock the door, draw the blinds, turn off the lights. I wanted to hide. I needed to hide. But I didn’t. I drove home, desperate to find relief from this worsening condition. I drove back West, past the fields of corn and soybeans and wheat, and past the old golf course and the corn stand and the cows that moo deep into the night. I parked and rushed, careful not to fall from my confusion, back to the closet that I had been in just three hours before. I rummaged through the garments on the shelves and on the hangers. Pants, pants, long sleeved this and sweater that. Was there nothing here that I could wear?

What I needed were pants, but not the sort that went all the way to my feet. I needed some sort of pant that was shortened, cut off somewhere by the knee. Had there been scissors in that closet I could have made, in my sweaty haste, the sort of shortish pants that I needed. I pulled clothes from their places, throwing them behind me against the wall, like a person who matched the lottery numbers the night before but couldn’t, for the life of them, find that ticket that bore the proof. After much searching, I pulled out something that looked like it might just work. They were pants, all right, but shorter than the ones that I had on. They were hemmed by the knee, neatly even, not in the way that someone would do crudely with a scissors. They were short pants, and they would help me to overcome this sensation that I hadn’t been able to escape since I stood for that moment in the Cafe parking lot. I tore my pants from my legs, ripping and cutting at them like an EMT worker in an ambulance, desperate to save his patient from their wounds.

After that, things got better. I drove back past the fields, the overgrown golf course, the schools and the $22MM future debacle. I drove to Cedar Point, to where I had been going before, but now, with this change, the scenery came into view. The sounds were from people. Happy people. People laughing and walking and enjoying the brightness. The scene became familiar to me. There were children at the beach, splashing and playing. Women sat in beach chairs with oiled skin and smiles on their faces. I checked the mirror. I was still flush, but things were looking up. I had been getting hot, that’s all, and it was about time.

About the Author

I'm David Curry. I write this blog to educate and entertain those who subscribe to the theory that Lake Geneva, Wisconsin is indeed the center of the real estate universe. When I started selling real estate 27 years ago I did so of a desire to one day dominate the activity in the Lake Geneva vacation home market. With over $800,000,000 in sales since January of 2010, that goal is within reach. If I can help you with your Lake Geneva real estate needs, please consider me at your service. Thanks for reading.

3 thoughts on “Summer Times”

  1. I also wanted to let you know that the photographs that go along with your blog entries are wonderful! I especially like this one.

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