Blue Sky Reflection

Another broiling Texas day. Just before dark, I was out having my "hose time" where I stand reviving the wilting flowers with my thumb squishing the water coming out of the hose, my mind idling in neutral. I noticed a puddle of water on the sidewalk, and on its surface was the reflection of the sky above. I had a sudden flashback to when I was about 4 or 5 years old, before I could read.

When I was small, the reflecting puddles in our driveway after a rain would fascinate me. I thought they looked like openings to heaven — magical secret gateways from the boring old earthly world. I would stand at the edge of the shimmering portals with their enticing puffy white clouds and imagine myself jumping in, vanishing to another dimension. I would fantasize about making the leap, perhaps catching a ride on a unicorn. My parents would eventually realize I was missing, and then Rod Serling would appear, cigarette in hand, and tell them I had gone to a place called The Twlight Zone.

I loved peering into those inviting "heaven holes." I don't know why it took me another forty-some-odd years to notice them again. Surely they've been around this whole time.

Here's something else that happened today, while I'm on the subject of mid-life and flashbacks.

Half-watching The Today Show while getting ready for work, I heard one of my favorite Allman Brothers music riffs on a TV commercial. While Dickie Betts' guitar wailed the delicious opening notes of "Blue Sky", I looked up at the screen to see an attractive, grey-haired woman smile about the merits of a menopause medication.

What?

Like Travis Bickle in the film Taxi Driver, my brain twitched and sneered, "Are you talkin' to me?"

When did I fall into this demographic territory for Madison Avenue?

It's not that I'm unhappy about the Allmans "selling out." Having spent nearly half my life in an advertising career, I have no problem with ensnaring the attention and the money of John Q. Public by using a killer tune as bait. (I came to terms years ago that I was the woman in that old joke where the punch line is "Madam, we've established what you are, we're just haggling over price.")

But now the sensible shoe is on the other foot. While I would have been delighted and proud to have been the one who created this spot, I have decidedly mixed feelings about being its target.

Incidentally, ladies, isn't it funny that it's called MEN-o-pause?

And is it just me, or is it hot in here?