Finally, it’s Friday, Modern Philosophers! A long, frigid week has thankfully come to an end. The last several nights saw temperatures in Maine drop as low as 35 degrees below zero with the wind chill. Thankfully, my fur lined toga can withstand such conditions, but my mind is on the verge of snapping. I’m desperate for the mercury to rise above zero.
Naturally, this week’s Think Tank is going to deal with using the Time Machine to transport us back to a warmer, happier time. Are you reading to put on your Thinking Togas and join me?
This week’s topic: If you could travel back in time to this past Summer, how would you spend a few stolen hours to ensure you forgot all about this frigid Winter weather?
The answer to this one is easy for me. The House on the Hill has an amazing covered front porch, and sits on a very serene street. I’d fire up the grill at the end of the porch and throw on some red hot dogs and burgers. I’d relax in my chair, legs up on the porch rail, and pour two glasses of Sangria from the ridiculously over-sized jug we always purchase (not because it’s a good deal, but because we both crack up when my tiny better half struggles to carry it from the car up to the house). Then I’d look over at The Girl Who Always Shares The Jug With Me, take her hand in mine, and smile because nothing warms me up more than her touch and seeing the adorable dimple that dances on her cheek when she smiles back at me.
So what about you, Modern Philosophers? How would you warm up if you could travel back to Summer for a couple of hours? Remember, there’s no right or wrong answer to this one.
I look forward to reading your Deep Thoughts on this week’s topic. In the meantime, I’m going to watch that clip from Grease and think very fondly of The Girl Who Taught Me How To Dance.
Stay warm, my friends…
Ah, this week I can get some sleep as the answer came right away. I’d head back to childhood and the cabin in the Sierras where rocks and logs and pinecones were playthings. I’d swim in the ice cold lake then dry off on the the granitic sand beach. Perhaps the movie playing at the outdoor theater is “Born Free”. I’ll go to the movie in my jammies so I could fall asleep before the end . Or I’d sit on the deck rauling at the cabin, watch the chickadees in the pines and I’d yell, “Elmer it’s time for dinner,” as local yore required, watch the ants on the deck as I ate my burger, play a vicious game of spoons with the cousins while I anxiously awaited a fairytale reading by one of the grown ups before heading to the bunkbed on the sleeping porch.
First off, I’m glad the Think Tank didn’t add to your insomnia this week. Second, welcome back! That is a wonderful picture you just painted with your words. The temperature has risen about 10 degrees on this blog post.
Thank you for sharing your dleightful Deep Thoughts on this one. 
No, thank you for sending me into slumber with sweet memories of childhood. I can tell I need to go back to those memories more often; thanks for the prompt.
No problem. I’ll try to come up with something even better next Friday…
Wonderful! I’ll be traveling but will hope for cell service so I can do a little DeepThinking.
You can participate at any time.
I’d warm up by pulling a Judy Garland (from Meet Me in St. Louis) and spend a few hours “sunning myself” on the porch in hopes of seeing/talking to the boy next door. Well, across the street really. But who’s counting?
I’d love to be able to sun myself a little. I’m feeling as pale as the Vampires who are always hanging out at The House on the Hill. Did you ever talk to the boy across the street?
Not last summer…he’s the one I met two years earlier and had an epic saga of not much but way too much with. I still write about him all the time. He lived with his parents across the street from me for a while, before moving on last summer, across the country.
The one who got away…
Indeed.
I don’t have to use the time machine for this one, since, I am in the midst of Summer….and what a Summer of extremes we are having. Fire, Floods, …..its been a cruel Summer.
Great song. Sorry it’s been a weird summer. Hang in there…
I would be driving with no planned destination in the MLC with my man (hubby’s mid-life-crisis/convertible) listening to Al Green while holding hands like teenagers.
Yeah. Sounds great. You’re with me on the interlocking of fingers being really romantic. I love holding hands, too…
I would be lying in the middle of a field in Leicestershire, England, listening to the birds in the hedgerows and the insects in the long grass, smelling the freshly cut hay and drinking sweet tea from a flask…. my children would be playing in the nearby trees while my partner and I laughed, talked and stared at the sky making shapes with the clouds…
That is awesome! I’m already feeling the temperature rising! What a perfect summer image. Thank you for sharing…
Up at the cottage watching my little dog jump around through the woods like a rabbit. Cold drink in one hand, lake out in front of me and kids jumping off the raft, giggling.
Very nice! Very summery, very relaxing, very warm…
thanks for reminding about this song, it’s cold as it gets in Poland, I’d do some more traveling if it was summer
Any particular destination in mind?
oh, now that I though about it, Mexico ! not an easy trip though
first i would have a slumber party and sing about phil donahue or troy donahue and learn what ratting hair means..then go sing about john travolta by a pond…dance on top of a car and make L’s , with your arms…
You sound like a Pink Lady wannabe…
The Sacramento Valley never wants for warmth in the Summer. I would simply go out to the pool, lie out until the sun sizzled my poor Irish complexion, and then I would dive in. Rinse, and repeat!
Sure, rub it in. Maybe you’ll have to host the next Friday Night Think Tank at your place, and we’ll gather for a pool party!
Not yet. It’s FREEZING here now. 48 degrees with a projected high of 61. Not exactly swimming weather. Now, excuse me please, I need to wrap up in my parka.
You need to look up “freezing” in the dictionary, friend. Those temps would constitute a heat wave here, and Mr. King wouldn’t need to build his dome!
It’s a rough life out here in California. You have no idea
I used to live in Los Angeles, so my smog-addled lungs have some concept of it all…
So you have seen the masses bundled in their buffalo-lined parkas in 35 degree weather as if the world were ending and Hell actually did freeze over. It’s pretty funny, even if I do it too.
There’s an annual classic car show here in town. Every summer my husband and I go to it and fantasize about which car we would buy if we had Romney money or a reasonable facsimile. We didn’t go this past summer because it was too hot and my broken toe was slowing me down. So, I would go back in time, put on a cool tank top and some daisy dukes, carry a pretty pink umbrella and brave the heat and the pain.
Aww…that sounds great. I love how a majority of the comments have to do with spending time with the object of affection. That only is enough to keep me warm.
I would stretch out on the lounge chair, which had to be placed on the shaded part of the porch because it was too darned hot in the sun. There would be a cool iced tea in one hand, and a good book in the other. Except the book would be closed (as would my eyes) . I would be lying there, daydreaming, and listening to the kids in the neighborhood. When evening came around the chatter would change to the chatter of birds. There might even be a few birds splashing in the birdbath once the water cooled off enough. With any luck the neighbors would not be mowing the grass!
Spectacular! Thank you for sharing. Sounds like a memorable day…
I’d hang out on the bridge I bungee jumped off of.
After the jump, of course, when I was no longer quite so terrified…
I could never do that, but I hope you enjoyed it…
Back to the beach for several long swims in the ocean, walking barefoot in the wet sand, and climbing the rocks so that I can sit with my feet dangling over the incoming tide and watch the crabs and the gulls.
That sounds magnificent. It’s 24 degrees here today, and while still freezing, it feels like a heat wave after our run of subzero days…