Bathing Beauties + Reluctant Thawing

When my job became the internet, I lost interest in spending my free time 'round these parts.  

Here's what's going on off the internet: 

There are drug busts at the end of my bucolic West End street.  If I park at that end of the street and get out of my car in a dress, men yell things at me in Spanish.  The road that runs east-west, connecting my street to other streets like mine, isn't safe for me alone at night.  

The other end of my block has two large Victorian houses that, until recently, had matching OBAMA and END THE WAR IN IRAQ yard signs.  Kids ride bikes down the double-wide street until their parents call them in for bedtime.  Neighbors stop to chat with each other while walking their Labrador Retrievers. The most recent eventful moment on that end was the removal of an enormous dead tree.  

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I missed my two favorite parts of spring while in Santa Fe, visiting Libby (it was worth it): when the leaves on trees are still pale, delicate, and translucent, and when everything finally starts to have smells again after freezing up all winter.  I jumped right into the annual springtime problems: should I get an air conditioner for this summer? Why don't I own any summer clothes I actually like? Where's my allergy medication? 

And, of course: why don't they make bathing suits for women like they used to in the good old days?
(which are, in my mind, c. 1920)

EDIT: They do, but they're mostly hideous. 

I wouldn't mind that hat, either.