Thursday


7
Aug 25

The deer ate my homework

One fall class Canvas shell is now set. Two to go. I created the second one today and will get into it tomorrow, or this weekend, or both. And then, next week, I’ll start on the third class. It’ll be a question of taking four pages of notes and a bunch of other ideas into something fruitful. Three-and-a-half weeks to go.

The kittehs don’t mind. I don’t know that they think about things that far out, because their lives are pretty good. It’s just meeting each part of the day’s routine — mostly about where to nap, or how to get their pets. They do, at times, think about the fullness of a week. Some nights offer different parts of their larger routines. And then there are the inconveniences, like when they get their nails trimmed. And when I forget about adding them here. So let’s get you caught up.

Phoebe is making good use of the afternoon sun for her beauty shots on the landing. There’s a certain portion of the day when the sun shines just above the large window, and the light is diffused by the side of the house.

We don’t have a cat spot lined up for the golden hour, come to think of it. Maybe I can remedy that.

None of this bothers Poseidon, who is very concerned about his evening lap time. He has his routine. He waits, sometimes patiently, for dinner to be over. And then my lovely bride has to sit lengthwise across the sofa. The cat will not accept her sitting normally, for he needs to stretch out.

Unless he needs to curl up. Which he also requires the full length of her legs, for some reason.

When I came downstairs for dinner, and laptime, tonight, I looked out that big window and saw this little family out under the apple trees. They’ll get their share. Maybe they’ll save some for us this year.

Already I’ve shooed these deer off from the peach tree. Any moment now I’ll be out there grabbing fruit. Whatever the deer leave us, anyway.


31
Jul 25

Storm riders

We’ve been reliably told — or so the weather reports would tell us — that the heat wave will break. The storms that rolled in this afternoon were pushed through by a cold front. That happened in the mid-afternoon, and the phones erupted with obnoxious sounds urging us to take action. And to also plug in and turn on the weather radio. (Note to self …)

I was standing over my lovely bride’s shoulder in her home office when this happened. So two phones in close proximity made great big wah-wah sounds. Tornado warning. And all the little towns and crossroads listed seemed relevant. Seek shelter now, and all of that.

So we went to the basement. Twenty-five months in this house, and that’s the first time.

We stayed down there about a half-hour, which was probably about 10 minutes longer than necessary. The local TV meteorologists have a large DMA to cover, and they seem to think that other communities also deserve attention. But, finally, between what they were showing and what I could see on the radar apps, the storm that suggested rotation passed over to the north and west of us.

Hopefully everyone is OK. Things look good for the most part, here. It rained all through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, so we couldn’t do a complete inspection.

For now, I know this. I sure could go for some days in the 80s, and I’m not talking about the decade.

So maybe we’ll stop roasting. Or is it broiling? That all depends on the humidity settings. We did a bit of both this morning, when we went out for a quick ride. You know, before it got hot.

I have convinced myself that I don’t handle the heat as well as I used to. Or can do. It takes some habituation, and the other part of this is that I’m not particularly enthused by the idea of suffering through it to the extent necessary. What once felt like a badge of honor now just feels like There’s other stuff to do, too, ya know …

So after a time, I went slowly. Because of the heat. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Somewhere in here — not here, but on this ride — I crossed 20,000 miles on my Specialized.

I’ve been saying that’s when I’ll spring for myself a new bike. But that means shopping. And analysis. And agonizing. This is not a hobby bereft of details. And people love their specs. I’d like to be over bike specs, but you can hardly avoid them to get the fit and function you’re after.

Also, this is expensive. Buying a bike is the fourth most expensive thing I’ve ever purchased, after my home, my car, and a pound of ground beef.

So if you want to help me shop, or start a GoFundMe …


24
Jul 25

It starts with the next one

A great deal of weeding was done this week. Hours and hours of it, to be honest. So much so, that you can now smell the fragrant smells of some of the herbs (not pictured) you aren’t sure that you really want. The herbs that grow in such abundance you know you’ll never need them all. There aren’t enough recipes or neighbors for those things. But they smell like summer, and now they’re commanding the nostrils’ attention, a sensory system which was, until yesterday and today, previously overwhelmed by the site of so many weeds. But now the flower beds all look pretty grand.

There are also flowers to deadhead. And maybe I’ll do that one day. And then, in a week or so: the peaches.

But, first more heat, and a lot of it.

Went out for a bike ride this morning which was a great big ol’ bust. We set out to do my little 25-mile time trial, and I was so proud to introduce it to my lovely bride. Proud if for no other reason than that she didn’t know all of the turns, so she’d have to ride with me, rather than drop me in the wind somewhere. (She’s much stronger in the wind than I am.)

But we were about 10 miles in and I flatted. I glanced down to try to ascertain what was going on and at that same time, in front of me, she almost got whacked by a car coming out from the right. We’re sensitive to that sort of thing, as you might imagine. So she collected herself and went on … somewhere. I sat under a shade tree and replaced yet another tube. That makes five for the season.

And then I think I might have punctured the new tube on the way back in. I was too frustrated to check. All one must do is go out tomorrow, squeeze the back tire and mutter Belgian cycling oaths.

Look, I have a blessed life, exceedingly so, and I can’t really want for much. These, however, are the things I want for at the moment: to fall asleep at regular times consistently, to go one, maybe two whole months without having a service call at the house (looking at you, August and September) and to have maybe a dozen high quality bike rides in a row.

Starting, one hopes, with the next one.


17
Jul 25

The kind of heat that’s just painful

One of our bike-riding neighbors sent out a note calling for a ride today, and it just seemed like a bad idea. The heat index, at that moment this afternoon, was 114 miserable degrees.

In my many years of experience with extreme summer weather I can tell you this: nothing over 106 matters. It just reads as pain.

So I did not go for a bike ride today. But I washed clothes. And, also, I watched a documentary I’ve decided to add to my fall class. It’s a little bit older, this documentary, but it includes a few things I didn’t know about a moment I’ve studied a fair amount. The real point will be in our analysis of the film as a product, and I made several pages of notes. It might, in fact, become the first one we watch in the class. Some of the points in it could set a tone.

Anyway, let’s look at some more flowers. It’s difficult to say a hibiscus is sneaky, but this one did sneak up on me this year. One day it was a shrub and then last week, this happened.

I might prefer the hibiscus flowers in their early form. Intricate. Sturdy. Delicate. Full of promise.

Now, this week, the hydrangeas are making their play for attention. We have two of these giant white hydrangeas. And I hope that, this year, we don’t get a torrential rain that ruins them before their show is done.

If we ever design a flowerbed of our own, I’d make the argument that it should be chronologically designed, with each section intending to show off its best work as the season progresses. One thing leading to the next, a calendar of clump, a slower sun dial, if you will.

One that can handle the heat.


10
Jul 25

The middle of summer

It’s the middle of summer, the sort where you convince yourself that the actual middle is next week. This is the same argument I made with myself last week.

Guess what I’ll be doing next week.

On today’s bike ride I decided to take a photo in a particular place, and then forgot about that entirely. I remembered it three or four miles later and realized, I’ve probably never taken a photo of this spot before.

So here you go, venturing into the deep dark forest.

You’re in the shade of the tree canopy for about 35 seconds before you’re staring back into the sun again.

I think I’m going to try something different. I’m going to take tomorrow off, and ride this same route on Saturday. Maybe I’ll go faster with a day off.

Watch, that will work, and then I’ll have to reconfigure all of my ride plans. Of course, those intricately laid plans currently consist of, “How hot is it?”

I went outside this evening and it was 79 with 90 percent humidity. I’m not sure if plants even need watering under those conditions. (The weeds don’t!) Then I made the mistake of looking at tomorrow’s weather. Tomorrow’s forecast in no way played into the weekend bike experiment. Also, look how bright that moon is.

Anyway, back to doing productive stuff. I am approaching the stage of class planning where I wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew.

Remember, designing new classes is fun! Remember that so you can remind me of that sometime in the next month-and-a-half.