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| Offshore fishing near Isla Mujeres and glowing! |
My dad peered over the top of his reading glasses, leveling his gaze at his naïve teenage daughter: “No,” he admonished, “Horses sweat. Men perspire. Ladies glow.”
I guess I
was born a horse.
I am about
99.5% certain that my very proper, very stern and very formidable grandmother,
Nellie Blanche Lyons Gobert, taught my father that expression. She passed away when I was about seven, but I
still remember her upright bearing, and impeccable manners. She was a school principal, one of the first female school principals in Canada. One did not mess with our
grandmother!
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| Nellie Blanche Lyons Gobert about 1915 |
Me, well, I
glow, like an out-of-control nuclear reactor.
Starting about now, June, I usually change my clothing two to three
times per day. From the skin out –
everything!
Normally both Lawrie and I
putter around the house, fixing this, polishing that, applying a coat of paint
to a scuffed wall. Doing little
tasks. Tinkering.
He manages to maintain his cool, barely breaking
a sweat. Pardon me, I meant to say - barely
perspiring. I, on the other hand, have a
nice bright pink face, and a good healthy pore-cleansing glow going on.
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| Working on our Summerland house entrance 2006 |
In Canada if
we were doing a major project like tiling the bathroom, or renovating the front
entrance I could work up a really good glow. Living in the tropics it occurs more
frequently.
Today I fiddled around with
painting one short wall on our upper street-side deck. By the time I had finished I was soaked
through.
Angel, one of three young guys
replacing the netting over our palapas, looked at me with a silly who-me grin on his face, innocently
asking: “Tienes mucho calor amiga?”
Si! You bet your sweet bippy! Mucho calor!
 |
| The cool dude! It's May and he's comfy in a thick shirt. |
The upside is
that mosquitoes can easily locate me. I have
a heat-signature that is like a flashing red neon sign. Free!
All-you-can-eat-buffet. They bypass
Lawrie preferring to swarm my overheated follicles. If mosquitoes had lips, they would smack them
together in anticipation of a feast. I
am certain the local mosquito population is very appreciative of my
contribution to their well-being.
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| Summerland BC - entrance all done! |
And to
ensure the lovely little mosquitoes don’t over-indulge on my DNA, I spray every
bit of my exposed skin with Off Family
repelente de insectos. In Canada, Lawrie
pampered me with nice expensive perfumes. They were always a much appreciated birthday
or Christmas gift. Somehow insect
repellant doesn’t have quite the same cache, and isn’t nearly as romantic when
received as a gift.
On some
level I think my grandmother would have been proud of me, remembering that
ladies glow, apparently we don’t sweat.
But one thing puzzles me. How did
she manage to remain lady-like raising three active children in the early part
of the 1900’s when women wore long, hot, cumbersome dresses every day, all day?
Just
thinking about that, makes me glow. I
think I’ll go and have another refreshing swim in our pool.
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| One small wall - and I'm glowing! |
Hasta Luego
Lynda and Lawrie
