Summertime and the quesadillas are buzzing

Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high. One of these mornings you're gonna rise up with a summer cold. You won't spread your wings. You won't take to the sky. You will mostly just sit there staring out the window at the heat shimmering on the patio, and nap to the sound of the quesadillas.

Yes, according to one student, those buzzing insects are "quesadillas". It knocked me for such a loop when she said it I couldn't come up with the word, "cicada," for hours. You would think this would put me off Tex Mex food for a bit, but the headcold made me very hungry. The buzzing insects told my snozzy head and growling tummy I NEEDED not just quesadillas, but sizzling fajitas, bulging burritos, and guacamole with chips. More on chips later.

I think we could also call those buzzing summer cicadas "vuvuzelas". They are incessant and tuneless, much like the plastic horns at the South African World Cup. The first week of games, the vuvuzelas were really bugging me, but like cicadas, I'm used to them now. I might feel slightly untethered if the sound was turned off.

My odd summer work schedule allows me to watch parts of the World Cup games that begin at 6:00 or 9:00 a.m. CDT. Underemployment has certain benefits. The day of the headcold I couldn't watch t.v. Staring out the window at the hot patio was all I could handle.

Should you like your summertime with a side order of surf music, please try this music courtesy of On The Flip-side. Need more buzzing with your quesadillas? YouTube has a soccer ball button to add a vuvuzela soundtrack to the inner video of your life. Or you could take a Benadryl.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder