Tis A Gift To Be Spitting

Watermelon Seed-Spitting Day
Originally uploaded by batskeets

I Love Watermelon-with a capital L & a capital W(and I guess that was a capital 'I' as well, but it doesn't count for this cliche'). What is there NOT to love? The watermelon is a beautiful, green, juicy fruit. The interior is a delicious pink(not my favorite color by any means, but watermelon never reminds me of Pepto-Bismo). It smells wonderful and tastes even better! It is fun to cut up, and you can play John Belushi, Samurai warrior, on the shell when you make smaller pieces for the compost heap. Oh, the seeds? You don't love the seeds? For years I would have agreed with that. Actually, I started buying seedless watermelons when my children were tiny choke machines, or at least I was afraid they were. I thought seedy watermelons should have a warning label like toys; "Warning! Small parts, not for three years and under." So when I found seedless watermelons, I knew the plant breeding goddesses had smiled upon us.
Last week i went to the farmer's market at American Creek, a stand alone simple pleasure. I went to the Hutterite ladies
http://equayonabigbear.blogspot.com/2008/07/whatterites.html
and had a pleasant time chatting as my dogs sang sonorously in the car-completely within eyesight! Quite a concert!. Anyway, the Hutterite ladies had wonderful looking watermelons and I bought one. These were not the battleship sized monsters commercial growers produce but lovely round grey-green fruit with dark green stripes, sized for two or maybe three people. When I cut it open at home, it snapped! The dogs and I savored(yes, the dogs love WM too!) the pink, just-right-sweetness of the melon. But it had seeds! I had a few in my mouth, I leaned over the sink, and HOLY CRAP! I started poppin' those pips and it felt so good. I had completely forgotten what a joy spitting watrmelon seeds can be! Not any contest or competition, that's actually seperate fun, but just the slppery, slidey seed spitting was delightful! Maybe back when eating watermelon automatically meant seeds it was harder to appreciate this little bit of fun. OK seeds could be a pain in the ass, like fish bones, almost. But now that I have a choice? And I can go to the park by the creek and chat with the ladies and get very good home grown watermelon and CHOOSE to spit seeds? AH, it is an ephemeral summer time pleasure.