A midday storm is an inescapable display of power that changes a day’s entire attitude. When the winds and thunder roll in and the rain pecks at the walls and windows, that’s a thrill, a romance, a terror, a cozy companion, he wrote after careful proofreading.
That time just after the storm has passed needs a name for its sadness.
And it is. This was on Saturday afternoon, when there was no immediate need for melancholy. After an hour or so the sun was brilliant and drying everything out, as if nothing had happened and we were back to a wonderfully hot, now humid, summer day. The sort that is observed nicely from indoors, because let’s be honest about the need to be outside. And that little storm was fun, but the part that follows seldom ever is.
Anyway, we’ve had several nice summer rains of late, and they have been immensely helpful. Presently, 100 percent of our county is rated as “abnormally dry” on the drought monitor. Only 9.8 percent of it is in the moderate drought category. Most of the county has been in a drought since last October. Three months ago it was of the “severe” variety.
This is the second moderate drought we’ve experienced in three years here. In 2024, we got some rain one night in November which broke the longest consecutive-days drought in 130 years of local record keeping. It’d been two months since anything fell out of the sky. Even then, when even the people that pay close attention to these things began to get squirmy, it wasn’t like the 2002 drought, when people were having to change their habits. “My lawn! My car!” When the veggies shrivel or you’re asked to take shorter showers, that’s when people notice. If we’re emerging from a drought right now, a slow-motion, year-long effort, I don’t think it’ll figure into most people’s thinking. Certainly not the neighbors, with the sprinklers.
But if we’re emerging from a drought, it could be a lot worse. Look out west. Look at Europe. Look around.
And if you don’t look too carefully you might think that I caught this maple leaf, midflight, and with a drop of rain on it.
If, that is, you overlook the spiderweb, which I’ve obviously been doing.
Everything grows well out back. Morning sun and afternoon shade and look at the Brown-eyed Susan. It is about to break containment.
Right next to it, the honeysuckle, which we had to cut way back in the spring of last year to replace the trellis upon which it depends. I had no problem with that. Honeysuckle takes your attacks on its free will and laughs in the face of your determinism. I need to prune it more, because it has grown wild and woolly once more. Add it to the list of things I need to do when it isn’t 98 degrees outside, which is the case as of this writing.
There are so many things on that list, and I made one slight in-road yesterday. I visited Harbor Freight, my first every visit, and picked up yard bags — cheapest I could find, and yes I did an extensive price comparison because I have the internet available for my every thought.
I also had a list of other things I wanted to pick up, a note on my phone, complete with names, prices and aisles. To say I have been preparing for this trip for sometime is overstating it, the previous two sentences notwithstanding. And then I got there and —
I’d like to leave the previous shopper a note of encouragement. The important thing is that you almost tried.
Completing the job of landing the cart in the corral would have taken an additional nine steps and a sophisticated heel pivot — I know because I did it for you — but you almost did the thing that society requests of you.
It calls to mind times when I would go to the IGA in wherever it was we lived last. Someone was always leaving carts out. Mind you, I don’t cruise the parking lot looking to solve this problem, but if it’s there I will fix your shortcomings, sure. And I’ll feel good about myself, as I did the times at that IGA when I moved the carts from the handicapped parking spaces into the corral that was mounted right next to the handicapped parking spaces. The grocery store kids were taking a smoke break on the stoop and laughed at that, and, eye contact being a fate-worse-than-death in that part of the world, I gave them a look, in turn.
I don’t miss anything about that place. Well, the 9:30 sunsets in the summer were nice. They also had good multi-use paths. Seven years, those are the two things I miss.
Anyway, I purchased the lawn bags. Probably should have picked up more — but how much of that do you want to do at a time? I also picked up two corner clamps. You really need four, but they only had the two. I decided to wait on some other items on my list, but I did indulge myself by picking up two cheap tape measures. One will live upstairs. One will live downstairs. This plan accomplishes two goals, keeping the good tape measure from wandering all over the house for weeks at a time, and keeps me from having to go to the garage to fetch the good one when I need to determine the empty space on that wall over there. At $4 a pop, these two new ones will pay for themselves somewhere around 2029.
The tape measures were in one of those blister packages though, the sort that involves great risk of bodily harm to free the thing you now own. The easiest way to free the tape measure was by unscrewing the little belt clip from the back. The easiest way to do this was to pierce the blister package with the tip of a pointy Phillips screw driver. Then you unscrew it. Then you wiggle the screw out of place. The tape itself is now free of the packaging, but you must now dig out the little silver belt clip. And here it helps if you pretend like you are a 19th century battlefield surgeon trying to find a bullet, and then dig the thing out in a grotesque way for moviegoers.
Then you have to reassemble it. Now, this is a tiny screw on a cheap tape measure from Harbor Freight. You must take care with this, pretending like you are the first 21st century surgeon to use a sonic scalpel to remove a three-micron imperfection on a patient’s iris. Then you have to test the tape measure, because who knows what secondary role that screw had. Does the tape come out of the case? Yes. Does the lock lock the tape? Yes, also it has a satisfying click. Does the tape retract when you unlock the lock? Yes. Do you do all of this for the second tape measure? Yes. Does the cat look at you like he is wondering if you’ve completely lost your mind? Yes. Do you know where these two tape measures are going to be stored when they aren’t in use? Absolutely not.
Well, another day for that, then.
I am the type of bike rider that can ride the same road a lot. Some people get bored. I suppose some people find the repetition meditative. Me, I’m usually too close to hypoxia to worry about meditating. I am also the type of bike rider that likes to ride new roads, or revisit the rarely ridden roads. But, what I’ve really learned about myself is that I’m the type of bike rider who, once there is an idea in place, absolutely must do that ride.
Saturday evening I had the idea of doing some hill repeats. It’s all very flat here and I haven’t ridden a real hill in several years now and I was never good at it and it’s hot and I am not riding enough and so this was a good idea.
I recalled this road, which I’ve been up three times perhaps, and down twice. It has a hill. It’s gradual. It is also quiet, and part of it is, as you can see, nicely shaded.
People do hill repeats to get stronger — or, like me, to say they’ve done them. There’s a method to the madness of going up the same hill over and over. Probably more than one. I just decided to go up the hill, and figured I’d do it several times. And so I soft-pedaled my way to that hill, an easy 17 minute ride with no exertion. And then I went up that hill. It tops out, then goes up a bit more, and does that a few times before the road forms a T-intersection with the nearest highway. If you saw the hill in profile it looks a bit like a molar. The climb isn’t hard or long, but what I know about hill repeats is that you want the concerted effort and then the repetition. What I want out of the hill repeat is to be able to turn around safely. And this road does all of those things. So I rode the road, and figured, “I’ll do 10.” And then later I said to myself, “It really is hot out here.” And then I said, “I’ll do five.” And then I said, “I think that’s five.” And then I took the long way home, turning left at that highway instead of turning around, letting the road pull me past the veteran’s cemetery and back into town, feeling the asphalt bend to my right between the gas station and the biker bar. Apparently they have good pub grub, though I have only seen the “biker’s welcome” sign on the wall, and they wouldn’t turn me away, but I think they mean motorcyclists. The little side road I was on after that falls downhill, usually I’m on this bit of infrastructure in the opposite direction. I turn left and and then left again, past the town lake, and into downtown. I timed the red light, singular, just right. Make the right past bike shop and opposite the old fire ring, and then the left for home.
At that point I am 3.5 miles from home, I have been out for about 90 minutes, drank three bottles of water, had enough of the heat and the little hills. I am counting, in my mind, the little rises between my bike and my neighborhood. I estimated three. There were four. After the second I started thinking of the alternate ways home, because I didn’t want that last hill. At the four-way stop I could go left and then right and go up a hill on bad chip-and-seal and then do the reverse side of this climb. I could turn right and go down a hill and then up two actual hills before the final incline and … no, straight ahead was the easiest way to get there and I was just done with the heat. When I got home I was right on the edge of shivering, which is one of those early heat exhaustion symptoms. Or the sweat wasn’t evaporating because I was no longer in the wind and perspiration could finally do its cooling job.
Inside, then, more water, this time with electrolytes. Shower.
There’s a very, very small wound in the next photo, and I’m just telling you now. It’s hardly the worst thing in the world, but it is a part of the story and now you’ve been warned.
I’ve bled on a bicycle in several different ways. Crashes. Hailstorm. Whacked by a limb too far out into the road.
Some 10-plus years ago I cut myself so badly I had to turn around, go home and bandage myself up. The little rubber cover on my handlebar hood had disappeared and it hadn’t yet been replaced. Beneath that hood is a screw that holds all of the stuff in the shifter-brake area together. I reached up to adjust and grabbed the screw and sliced my pinky. It was at the beginning of the ride, and so I went back out, gauze and tape and Band-aids and such. I could follow the blood trail back out. I still have the scar.
Anyway, and here it comes, as I was getting ready to shower I noticed I nicked the ring finger on my left hand. No idea how.
It’s fine. Didn’t bleed. I’ll keep it clean and it’ll heal itself because I believe in first aid. But it’s right in that spot where the finger touches the middle finger and it’ll be a reminder, for a few days, that I have no idea how that happened.
My lovely bride, meanwhile, did an aqua bike == a swim and ride race — and she finished second. Podium and proud! We did the proper sort of celebration: Chinese for dinner, and basked with ice cream from the local creamery.
The teens running the place closed as we were there. Removed the garbage bags, shut the windows, took away the umbrellas, turned off the monitors and figured “These two are the upstanding sort who won’t cause us any problem. They’ll probably be home and in bed before 10, anyway.”
And they were right about that.
Well, I had a lot of other things I was going to talk about, but I have to save something for the rest of the week. Besides, I have written now almost 2,300 words and said absolutely nothing. You deserve a break.
