The First Hot Day of Summer

Yep, it finally feels like summer. In my car I tried to buckle my seat belt today and burned myself on the hot parts. The a/c in the car struggled to bring the temperature down to Tolerable. The noise of the house fan was less annoying than dealing with the quiet but hot rooms. I've been wondering when we were gonna get our first heat wave, it seems late in coming.

I was shocked the other day to look up at the mountain crest and see that there's only two tiny pockets of snow left. Usually the snow doesn't disappear until late July, sometimes even August. It hasn't been hot so I was surprised to see how much of it had melted. Although now that I think about it, it probably has more to do with how little snow cap we had fall this last winter than snow melt we have had so far this summer.

We had our first close fire last week. On the edge of the valley, it burned fast through chaparral and fields near houses and ranches and was visible from the edge of town. The girls and I sat at Starbucks drinking cold drinks and watching the smoke darken and lighten, the flames flare up, the CDF and Forestry trucks rumble past, the planes painting the sky above with red streaks of fire retardant. We chatted with travelers who wondered if they should wait it out or take off down the highway and hope it had reopened. I discovered a friend of our's father-in-law had gone out in the fire with his Cat to help the firefighters and had gotten trapped. He had to jump and run for it, getting some third degree burns but escaping. His Cat wasn't so lucky and got burned over. I was telling Lisa and Elena about all this and they looked very troubled. Eventually after a comical "Who's on first?" conversation, I realized they thought I was talking about a cat. No! I was talking about a Cat! All they could think about was what sort of evil man would take his cat out and abandon it in the middle of a fire!

Although I don't think it was really that hot today compared to what it's managed in the last few years - a weather report check says the high was around 90 degrees. It's supposed to be near 100 degrees by the end of the week. I think I'm gonna make myself some iced coffee and try not to think about it.

I'm too tired to do a theme post tonight. I'm just gonna ramble a bit and then I'm going to go back to sorting magazines and being slowly and methodically productive. Progress in my reorganizing, at this point in the game, means only that things are getting messier and more chaotic around here as I take more and more apart.

Here's a tip - When you bump into a shelf with a heavy box and knock over a quart of green paint and you have to choose between rescuing the heavy box or the relatively smaller can of paint, choose to save the can of paint. Because the paint can will hit another shelf halfway to the floor and the lid will fly off and all the paint will come sailing out in sllllllllloooooooooooooowwwwwww moooooootioooooon while you watch, horrified.

SPLAT!!! All over the wood floor.

Yeah. Guess how much fun THAT was to clean up!?

And if that wasn't enough adventure for one night, I spied a magazine laden shelf that was wobbling and threatening to throw it's load onto the floor. So I decided to be smart and unload it and straighten the shelf BEFORE it unloaded itself. As I was grabbing some of the magazines, the shelf gave way and the impact jarred the shelf above it loose, which came down flat onto the shelf below it, my elbow still wedged inbetween. I'm now sporting a heavy duty, magenta bruise on my elbow. And on my knee. Not sure why, maybe from some of the stuff that flew off the shelf while I was busy screaming about my elbow.

On a HAPPY NOTE, Nonny is finally out of the hospital. Turns out she had an infection called MRSA, a very scary anti-biotic resistant super bacteria. It's a wonder she was only hospitalized for four and a half days. I felt so helpless so far away. I'm glad I'm going to be going up to see her in just a few weeks. I want to see her all healthy and smiley for my ownself and I want to hug the stuffing outa her.

My son called me up today and accused me of trying to "take over the world". Oh? Yes. First I somehow brainwashed his wife, making her a clone of me, who quilts and blogs and (I love the logic (?) of this next one) hangs their clothes out to dry in the sun instead of using a dryer! AND NOW, Lisa's sister Elena is quilting and blogging. PROOF that I am secretly gathering an army of women bent on taking over. Uhm. Okay. We're taking over the world so we can.... baste it? If you want to see some of my handiwork (in so much as I'm responsible for my "clones"), here's Elena's new blog, Wind, Water, Fire. I love the name she chose for it. Although I'm not sure why she left out "Earth". I find her words to be surprisingly sophisticated for her age. Maybe she's a fledgling writer. Please stop by and say hello to her.

And now for something completely different!

Here's a couple of odd photos, just 'cuz.

Here's a picture of my foot next to Ginny Weasley. I have a big ol' fat foot for a girl but LOOK how fat my cat is compared to it. Everyone who meets her looks, looks a little longer, and then asks if she's pregnant. Nope. Just ROUND. And HEAVY. Maybe she's eating some of my rocks.
Here's a photo I took of William when we were at the beach last week. When William looked at the photo he then held out his hands side by side in front of him and looked at them. In real life they're they same color. Isn't that wierd how they look like two different people touching him in the picture?

Okay, that's enough rambling. I'm gonna go make that iced coffee.