Almost the 4th of July

The weather here, like nearly everywhere on the eastern half of the country, has been brutally hot for this time of year, making everyone dread the really hot month of August.  We opened the pool this year ~ last year we were too distracted with the chemo, etc., and it was a horrible black gloppy mess.  It is all clean and shiny, better living through modern chemistry, as was said decades ago.  And boy does it feel good, especially after working on the deck and mowing the grass (and weeds).  The grass is very dry and we need rain ~ just not the kind of rain we had Friday night, when the huge storm front went through and toppled tress and power lines and left thousands without power even now.  Luckily we had flickering and one brief outage, and the trees that fell didn't hit anything, although the pool had a huge branch fall into it.  I've never seen lightning like that night, one continuous peal of thunder and the entire sky lit up for 10 or 15 minutes.  I was sure the dining room windows were going to be smashed, and what would we have blocked them up with?  Locally there is not a generator to be had, and supplies of bottled water and camping stoves are depleted too. 

Tomorrow will be hard on the horses and the dogs, who do not appreciate fireworks.  We will leave them all in the barn for the whole day, so they don't panic and run through the fence.  I don't appreciate fireworks either, come to think of it.

I spent an hour this morning looking for the thumb drive that I used to back up all my important files, only to find it right in plain sight, with a post-it stuck to it listing the files.  So frustrating!  My desk is a mess, I have way too much stuff.  A lot of it is stuff that I had on my desk at work, memo cubes and such, that I feel attached to for some bizarre reason.  Heaven forbid I throw anything away...

I just heard of the death of Andy Griffin.  The last thing I saw him in was the video with Brad Paisley, "Waitin' on a Woman" , a bittersweet song.  He was 86.  I'm old enough to remember the Mayberry show the first time it was on...


Bumper sticker for the day:  "I don't exercise; it makes my coffee spill."