Watermelons

There is something amazingly special about watermelons.

Or maybe it's just me.

Half a watermelon each, our own pot of peppermint tea, and a movie from the list of the worst movies of all time (ever seen Suburban Girl? No, I didn't think so. Its only redeeming quality: Alec Baldwin. Be still my heart), has always been a go to Friday night activity for when Amy and I (hi Amy!) were too tired to do anything else.

By the end of the movie, we would have vastly huge watermelon babies, and would start pee-ing incredible amounts: every 15 minutes all.night.long.

But there is also that vibrant pink-ness, the juicy sweetness, the reminders of sticky summers past, sitting in the sun, contemplating another run through the sprinkler...

In short, today was a crap day, and a watermelon saved me from jumping off a cliff into the Ionian Sea.

I am not sure exactly what went wrong, but I guess I woke up on the proverbial wrong side of the bed and felt both vaguely suicidal and intensely murderous until after lunch, when I decided to walk my blues away and go get a Frappe at Cafe Art.

Only, it was grey outside; grey and damp and chilly. I had to put on a sweatshirt and pants for the first time in six weeks, it was so cold. Instead of raising my mood, I lowered it by venturing out into the murky weather.

I stomped through mud and splashed through puddles and contemplated just giving up and sitting by the side of the road in a mud heap and bawling until some Greek farmer took notice.

My ever-present pride saved me from that one.

The Frappe didn't help, and neither did cooking up life stories for the various villagers who ambled past. So, I went to the grocery store to buy some sponges and some more bread. I didn't really need either, but when I am depressed I shop.

The grocery store was the only thing open at 3:00pm in Harakopio.

When in Calgary, and in a terrible mood, I can be found either at a) Safeway, contemplating the glistening and wonderfully organized rows of produce or b) The Gap, gazing on the perfectly organized piles of jeans.

Something about both those places never fails to sooth my wounded soul.

Side note: Did you know that Gap has a unique smell that is in every Gap that I have ever been in? From Calgary to Rome; Florence to Florida; Kansas City to San Diego, D.C. to Las Vegas; Banff to Paris: every single one of them has the exact same clean, crisp smell. Sort of like a gay man's super sanitized idea of freshly washed clothing hung outside to dry in bright sunlight. It's wonderful.

But, back to watermelons.

As I was stuffing my sponges and bread into my bag, and dreading the damp walk home, the owner of the grocery store came up to me, and plopped a water melon right beside me. She pointed to herself, then to the melon, then to me.

She gave me a baby watermelon as a gift, just because.

And suddenly my day was the right side up again.

Well, until just now.

In a grand attempt to avoid some work that needs doing, I watched an adoption video that I came across. It has left me as I am now: A soggy mess with mascara running down my cheeks. Good thing my next door neighbor moved out last week. I don't know how I would have explained my hysterical sobbing and blackened face:

"There was this little black baby, and he was in Haiti, and he got the nicest parents, and he is so cute, but it is so hard for him to adjust, and can you imagine doing that? I want to do that. I want my own little black baby."

*Blank stare.*

Ahem.

Anyhoo....my watermelon is sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting to be sliced open to reveal it's radiant coral brilliance. It promises to make everything right.

It's always the small things.