Warm Thoughts

Maybe it's just me. I was walking near the ice skating rink yesterday afternoon and I saw a man and a woman, who looked to be in their mid to late 30's, jogging and they had on light gray matching sweatpants with a white stripe down the side. They both had on white Nike running sneakers that looked a lot like the pair I just bought two weeks ago and white sweat socks (really ankle socks) like the kind I wear with my shorts in the summer. The operative word here is summer but, it's not summer... it's definitely winter. The temperature here yesterday was 23 degrees and the wind chill made it feel like 17 degrees. It was "chilly-wop" as my frat brothers and I used to say back in the 80's. They both had on (again) matching white tank tops! No scarves, no scull caps, nothing... and they were just jogging, looking at each other, and smiling. It was quite obvious that they were in love. The matching clothes was a dead give away and so were the knowing looks, the Clark Gable and Janet Leigh like smiles they gave each other, and the perfect refusal to realize that it's the dead of winter. They were in love or crazy or both... it was hard to tell. Just watching them, I was ready to break out into song, joined of course by everybody in their cars and all who happened to be walking down the street.

I kept walking and when I got to the corner, this man who was old enough to be my father drove up in a very, very expensive and fly Alfa Romero with the top down! The top was down and his hair was blowing in the wind! He had a bluetooth on and was chatting away with somebody, probably a woman. I mean who else could make you throw care and caution (not to mention heat) to the wind like that? He had on a funky leather jacket like the one Marlon Brando wore in the "Wild One", some Aviator shades, and had Jay-Z playing on his I-pod mount. Okay, he was white and old enough to be my father... What does he know about Jigga? Mid-life crisis... talking to a young woman... she might even be Black and I'm thinking all of these things just by what I see. I'm no better than the check out guy Sunday, who saw my Hungry Man TV dinners and surmised that I was recently divorced.

After he pulled off, I wondered if maybe I was so cold because I was thinking about it. You know, maybe this was a mind over matter thing. These folks obviously had their mind on something other than the weather so, maybe if I had some warm thoughts, I wouldn't have been out there shivering. So, I took my coat off, took my scarf off, took my scully off, and walked from one block to the next and wouldn't you know that the wind would start blowing. I felt a bone-chilling cold that shook me so hard my ancestors came from out of the grave and began yelling at me, "BOY is you out of your mind? PUT YO COAT, SCARF, AND HAT BACK ON AND ACT LIKE YOU GOT SOME SENSE!" I did as I was told... after all, you don't want 1000 years of bad karma.

Not only did I put all of that back on but, I ducked into the nearest deli I could find and ordered some hot soup. I rubbed my hands together and thought some warm thoughts. I was still cold... better to think those warm thoughts inside where it's warm. As for those other people, I ain't mad at 'em... I just wish I had some of what they had before they came outside.