Dog Day Afternoon

When it's 55 degrees Fahrenheit on a late-January morning, you know something is askew. It's not exactly The Day the Earth Stood Still, but still a little unreal and just plain wrong, for a midwestern boy like me, to go outside in shirtsleaves the last weekend in January.

Legend has it that on this day in the winter of '51, the mercury dropped to 35 below zero in the farming village of Spring Grove, Minnesota, formerly known as Norwegian Ridge. I should know, because I was there. Or at least that's what my mom said.

Meanwhile, back in Central Swingstate, I forego the longjohns and let the fire go out, and I drink my morning coffee outside on the patio. There's a woodpecker perched upside-down on the apple tree, looking for breakfast, and the guy across the street is out playing with power tools trimming his hedge.

It ain't natural. I should be shoveling the walk, waxing my skis, and gliding up the trail on barrel staves. But my skis sit idle while the glaciers melt. I did the usual Saturday things - swept floors, baked break, recycled stuff - and made a second assault on the garage that thinks it's a storage space. In the process I unearthed some things worth salvaging - books and records we still haven't unpacked since our last move, desk implements I have managed just fine without, and the beach umbrella.

So it's late afternoon and still unbelievably balmy, almost time for a cold drink with a wedge of lime, so I set up the umbrella that's been packed away since we brought it home from Carolina Beach four years ago. Turns out the little round disk in the middle of the green plastic patio table pops right out, and the wooden pole, which once stuck in the sand, fits right through the table and anchors nicely in a little bucket of gravel. Eureka!

The whimsical red, yellow, green, blue, and purple striped umbrella really jazzes up the otherwise dormant yard. Bare trees, heavily mulched flower beds with dry remnants of perennials standing vigil, a garishly bright cloth umbrella hovering above the table, and me sipping my drink.

I had to take it down, of course, before the rain and wind hit later that night, but it was worth it just to put it up as a brief reminder on the eve of the lunar Year of the Dog, that summer will be here before long, and when it is I will be ready with my multicolored, sun-deflecting patio umbrella.