At some point over the weekend — perhaps yesterday when I headed down to Washington Square to partake of assorted patriotic festivities — I found myself thinking about red, white & blue. Not what it stands for so much, but that it's everywhere. Together and separately. The colors, plain & simple. Along with plenty of other colors, of course.
And that made me think about a couple of colorful exchanges I'd overheard the day before ...
Super Son was home from the Big City (named for a red fruit) with Super Girlfriend and Super Roommate in tow; other familiar faces from high school & college kept showing up as the long, wonderful, largely-blue-sky weekend wore on. At one point, the whole gang was standing around outside gearing up for their next activity — a bike ride to Second Beach — which required a certain amount of effort, as the collection of spare bicycles in the basement were suffering from varying degrees of soft, squishy & downright flat tires.
Super Son was home from the Big City (named for a red fruit) with Super Girlfriend and Super Roommate in tow; other familiar faces from high school & college kept showing up as the long, wonderful, largely-blue-sky weekend wore on. At one point, the whole gang was standing around outside gearing up for their next activity — a bike ride to Second Beach — which required a certain amount of effort, as the collection of spare bicycles in the basement were suffering from varying degrees of soft, squishy & downright flat tires.
Remember when stepping on the backs of someone's sneakers in grade school resulted in a "flat tire"?
Anyway, there was Super Roommate (in green flip-flops) getting ribbed by one of Super Son's high school friends (in red, white & blue Nikes). The latter said, "I'm going to have to wear sunglasses to hang out with you."
I.e., Super Roommate wasn't sporting much of a tan.
His response was quick, however: "Zip it, Red Beard."
Meanwhile, Super Son was getting a workout pumping up tires while Super Girlfriend looked on. Both were in Rainbows — sweet!
And then later, as diverse members of the pink (by virtue of sunburn) crowd gathered in the kitchen, Super Girlfriend and Super Roommate were eating goldfish in creative fashion and comparing notes on how it's done.
"This is how you catch a goldfish," said Super Girlfriend to Super Roommate, as little orange crackers flew back & forth across the room.
No idea what I'm driving at: just that "red, white & blue" as well as "red," "white" and "blue" carry with them lots of baggage. Red hair is actually orange (isn't it?). Goldfish are orange, too. And none of it matters, really. Except, in fact, it does ...
Just for the record: the smiling goldfish really was sitting there on the rocky shore. No posing involved. Seriously.
