Kind of a reverse polar bear

One of my most fun and memorable New Years Days was spent at the Carlen Soulé Memorial Polar Bear Dip in Cayucos, California back in 2001.

Mind you, a Polar Bear Dip in California is not quite as polar as those in the Midwest where you have to chop ice before you plunge. But the water is still a brisk, refreshing temperature, about 54 degrees or so.

Something about running into the cold green sea on the first day of the year with a couple hundred other loonies makes it seem like a real turning point, a time for to wash that old year right out of your hair.

Today I did a slightly different version. I have a shower outside in the back yard that the landlord set up for dog washing after a prior tenant clogged the drain with massive amounts of golden retriever hair.

I was dyeing my hair outside, so I decided to take it to its logical end and rinse outside too.

I thought about putting on my swimsuit but it was still cold and clammy from yesterday's water aerobics class, so I took a nice, fully naykid shower outside.

My yard is set up so that you would have to be an acrobat or at least very, very nosy to see back there - which is good because I would not want any of my neighbors to suffer cardiac arrest on the very first day of the year.

It was a little breezy and I surprised the hell out of Goldie, but it felt like a fun way to begin a new year - doing something I had never done before. And the water was a lot warmer than the Pacific Ocean.