(morning writing)

Last week was busy, with Wednesday a doctor's visit to have all the blood drawn and verify that my breaking out in spots was not for any serious concern. A luxury of walking in the air conditioned mall and a lunch out for a avocado mango crab salad at the Nordstrom cafe. Then hours assisting my dad with tech support calls, setting him up with a new email account at my provider, and changing default email addresses. (I repeat the notes from below)

Thursday i stopped work early, started working in the yard at 3 and worked almost to 8.

Friday i worked late, during a lovely rainy day.

Saturday i woke late, and remembered at the last minute our nephew was invited over in the evening. We did the usual last minute cleaning and had a lovely visit. I actually won at Scrabble, which was a byproduct of having the valid two letter words out, getting both blanks, and pulled the Q and U at the same time. Best racks ever. Meanwhile, there was an assassination attempt on the former president and the level of "what next" just punched me in the gut.

Sunday was hard. My nephew's choice of conservatory triggered deep painful memories for Christine, compounded by her discovery that a metric she was using to indicate success with her radio station was inflated by stream rippers. Her melancholia is deep and i've had a hard time pushing it from me and saying, "not my feelings." The concern i felt about reactions to the shooting didn't help. As the limited facts have come out, it seems less like a tipping point and more like Moar Drama. The conspiracy mills will continue and the Secret Service will be pilloried (and maybe they should be?).

I am pondering all the heat warning in the news and wonder. I think i have screen grabs of "feels like 106°F" from the second summer we were here and i was out all day every weekend cleaning up the property. I'm not sure i need to hide inside as much as i want to. But the warnings from the weather service and the  "i'm worried about the heat" from Christine makes it so much easier to demotivate. I'm very glad i was out on Thursday, when it was still a sauna, but not oppressively so. I wish i could have taken even more time off while it was nice.

Mulberries are done. I need to figure out how to tell if apples are ripe: the color on the front tree seems to be moving from a green to gold. ...video... Hmm, the seed color seems a good check. I feel the front apple may hold it's fruit more tightly than average.....

From Thurs July 11:

This morning is remarkably not oppressive outside. Thank you weather that came through overnight. I drove through a rainstorm coming home yesterday evening to find it turned off at the east end of our road.

Why does the humming bird visit the fig tree? It hovers like an Imperial droid surveying the planet.

There is some creature to the south east that sound like a chicken, the long drawn out first vocalization before the clucks: braaaaaa. A little raspy.  I think it's too quiet for the Merlins app to pick it up, and it might be an amphibian.

Yesterday was draining with a doctors appointment surrounded by meetings in the parking lot or at the nearby mall, then a long afternoon of tech support for my Dad. I stood in for him with tech support for his 20+ year old email then set up a new domain for him and added an email onto my rackspace subscription. I was so delighted his first choice of domain was available!