Carry a Mailbag

I am sitting on the lanai watching a palm tree swaying back and forth in the breeze. Nothing says paradise more than this.

Why then am I wondering just where it will hit the condo complex if it is uprooted by that same ocean breeze. I’m pretty sure that it will miss my condo, but I can’t say that with an absolute certainty. It’s only a foot or so in circumference but there is sixty or seventy feet of it which would be pretty destructive. Palm trees don’t have the deep root systems that trees have in Canada, they are more like small potted plants which will willingly leave the dirt for just about any reason.

I guess I shouldn’t worry about a palm tree falling on me, that is just stupid. It’s far more likely that a rogue shark will mistake my too white body for a seal while I am flopping around in the ocean. I doubt that I will taste very good, but by the time sharks figures that out I will be missing an important part of my body. Just to be clear, any part of my body is important as far as I am concerned. 

A shark is just me being silly, but there are these fish with wicked looking spines all over their bodies that I see washed up on the beach durning my daily walks. My hope is that they died somewhere out in the ocean and were washed up during the nightly high tide. Not knowing anything about mid Pacific fish this one might be a flying attack fish that launches itself at unsuspecting mammals that are walking along the beach looking for bits of sand glass and not paying attention to an attack from the ocean. Out of the blue yesterday Louise looked at me and with a serious look on her face she said “Never turn your back on the ocean!”  What the hell! I am on an island, so anyway I turn my back it will be pointed to the ocean. Sure there might be miles between the ocean and my back but who knows how crazy this ocean can be. Why would Louise do that? 

I am far more likely to get a thorn in my foot from the trees that line the beach. Why would they have thorn trees by the beach in paradise? Okay, all of this is just silliness because the real danger is from the sun. I have been feeling a warmth on my body for the past few days and even though I want a nice lightly bronze colour on my skin, I suspect that I am getting closer to fire engine red than chocolate tan. Well, I’m not staying away from the beach (I paid good money for this experience) so my skin will just have to suck it up.

At least I don’t have to carry a mailbag on my sunburnt shoulders when I go home…