Summertime blues with Mr Lunat

Salute Arno,

You know it is summer when you sweat in the shower.

It was Japan's hottest day in recorded history.  I hiked 10 kilometers in the mountains, drenched in the electric rain of cicada sex songs: "me, me, me."

You know it is summer when cockroaches eat your soap.

Ancestral spirits return home in summer.  People sit around their electronic hearth, filling their spiritual wait by watching baseball or ghost stories on TV.  

You know it is summer when a watermelon becomes a meal.

Three years away from a bar I used to frequent.  No surprise that I am back.   Conversation resumes as if it was yesterday. 

You know it is summer when 70 people die from the heat.

When Brain Failure is not only the name of a punk rock band.

You know it is summer when you see more skin than style.

When "hot, hot, hot," becomes a greeting, and humans start sounding like cicadas.

You know it is summer when tanned babes use parasols.

When people listlessly flap their fans.

When festivals happen almost every day.  My favorite involves almost a million people, dancing in the streets, and a tidal wave of sound, something like being inside a concrete mixer full of jackhammers and whistles.

Most Japanese say their country has four seasons: Summer, Spring, Fall, Winter and Rainy.  Wait, that`s five.  But of course, really there are only two: Summer and the rest.

"The difference between here, and there," he said, pointing outside, "is air-conditioning."

Summer means becoming an involuntary blood donor: mosquitoes, fleas and other bugs line up to take a bite.  

You know summer is ending when you can say, "No sweat!"