Middle of August already

Seagull at the bus stop

Every weekday morning I walk about a half mile to the bus stop. This seagull was there three days this past week, and I finally decided to capture a picture of him. He can fly, but he must have figured out this is a good place to watch for food prospects. The lady sitting next to me on the bench started to eat her bagel and he inched forward, interested. We shooed him away, but he kept coming back. I was surprised to see him there, day after day.

I also noticed when I downloaded the picture how long the morning shadows have become. It was taken about 7:30am, and it reminded me that we have passed Lammas, the day between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. We are losing more than three minutes of daylight every day now, which adds up to almost a half an hour each week! And the weather has been hot, by Pacific Northwest standards anyway. We almost reached 80 degrees F here in Bellingham a couple times this week. The weather on our hike last Thursday was terribly hot, as we trudged upwards in full sun. My little thermometer read 88 degrees; I was carrying almost two liters of water and drank every drop.

I also pushed myself pretty hard to get to the top of the peak, along with several of the other hikers. Whenever I get lightheaded and cannot eat my lunch when I stop, I know I'm dangerously close to heat exhaustion, so I drank as much as I could hold, which eventually helped. Next week I will carry some electrolytes to boost my energy levels, which I did for a long time but never seemed to need them. Last week I really did wish I had some.

Perhaps it explains my current feeling of enervation. Although yesterday (Saturday) I woke feeling great, I noticed a bit of scratchiness in my throat and wondered if I might be coming down with something. Although I went on the five-mile walk with the Fairhaven group in the morning and felt fine, it was becoming obvious as the day wore on that I might be in danger of catching something. Today I woke with the same scratchy throat, but it is no worse and there's no congestion, so I'm hoping that, if the weather cooperates, I'll be able to join my friends in Snohomish today for a skydive or two.

Tomorrow is another hard hike, the second in our "extra" hikes of the summer, but I'm beginning to think it might be smart for me to skip it and let myself rest. That's hard for me to admit, so I'll see how today goes before I make any rash decisions one way or the other. It's not much fun to realize that you're sick and have no energy when you're in the middle of the wilderness with your friends. And that there's nothing to do but soldier on until you get home. The older I get, the more I realize it's important to listen to my body and what it tries to tell me BEFORE I become indisposed.

My baby sister Fia married her beau, Russ, this past Friday. I call her my baby sister, but she's fifty now, but since I'm seventy, I can call her that. She looks radiant in her pictures, posted on her daughter's Facebook page. It's hard for me to realize that Fia is a grandmother already; Aiden was the ring bearer (he carried them on his little fire truck). A joyous celebration. I'm so glad for her to begin this new chapter in her life.

Yesterday I went to see a movie with my friend Judy, The Way Way Back, which I enjoyed very much. It's a coming-of-age movie about a 14-year-old boy who is forced to spend the summer at his mother's new boyfriend's beach house. Steve Carrell plays the despicable boyfriend; he is so good that I hated him throughout the entire movie. We are so fortunate to have an independent theater here in Bellingham, the Pickford. We get to see lots of movies that don't make it to the regular theaters. Another one that I enjoyed tremendously was a documentary about backup singers, 20 Feet From Stardom. I don't see many movies that earn a 99% "freshness" rating on Rotten Tomatoes (check out the link), but this one did and deserves it, too. It's about women, mostly black women, who are as talented as the main singers they back up (or more so), but for one reason or another they don't make it big. If you get a chance to see either of these movies, I'd love to hear what you think.

Well, that's pretty much all I've got in me this morning. The sun is finally beginning to lighten the sky at 6:30am, and I'll be checking the weather obsessively for a while until I figure out whether it makes sense for me to drive for an hour and a half down to Snohomish. Of course it was sunny and beautiful until the weekend, and then a front moved in. It did clear out early yesterday, though, and I almost changed my plans, but decided to hope for another good day today.

My partner is still sleeping next to me, my tea is finished, and the day beckons. The time I spend here every Sunday morning has become precious to me. I have a chance to think about what's on my mind, where I am right this minute, and think about my dear friends out there in Blogland. I hope you are all well or trending in that direction, and I hope the same for myself. Until next Sunday...

Can anybody become mean and cruel?

I've been watching the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, about a woman who ends up going to a women's prison for fifteen months for something she did a decade earlier. The series is based on a book written by Piper Kerman, who spent a year in prison for much the same reason as the character in the series. I'll have to read the book after I finish watching the 13 episodes. From everything I've been able to ascertain, it follows the book pretty closely. An excerpt about the book:

From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. 

It's hard to tear myself away from binge-watching one episode after another. This morning as I sit here thinking about what I want to write about this morning, I feel the turmoil I'm experiencing about the cruelty of the prison guards towards the women in their care. Is it simply because the act of giving people complete and utter control over others would cause anybody to become so cruel and unfeeling? I remember reading a while back about an experiment that recruited ordinary people (college students) and put them in a setting where half were prisoners and half were wardens. It was supposed to last two weeks but had to be terminated early because the "wardens" became abusive and the "prisoners" had nervous breakdowns, within a few days! (I just found the website for the experiment, which was held at Stanford University in 1971.)

It must be something inherent in all of us, to either be kind or cruel to others. There must be a reason for the rise in reality shows (which I don't watch) that give the watchers a chance to relate to these emotions without actually putting oneself in the position of being cruel. Somebody watches that awful wrestling show, which I immediately turn off when it comes on. Maybe these shows provide an outlet for feelings that everybody has. I wonder.

Or is this true at all? I know I've done things in my life that I'm not proud of, but I truly cannot recall a time when I inflicted pain on anybody or anything on purpose. I remember a young playmate when I was a kid who loved to torture little animals. I couldn't understand it then and I don't understand it now. But I do remember once, a long time ago, when I was playing with my little sister, I held her down and tickled her until she screamed in terror. It must have been traumatic to both of us, for me to remember the incident all these years later.

Maybe I am being naive, but I don't think that cruelty is something that everybody develops in such circumstances. During the Holocaust, there were people who were able to find joy and happiness in concentration camps, in spite of the most horrendous circumstances. I remember a book that still resonates after many decades; in fact, I recently re-read it to see if it was as powerful as I remembered, called Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. He was a prisoner in Auschwitz during World War II and not only managed to endure it, but he developed a theory to explain why some people are able to survive such atrocities, while others died. The book was different for me to read after all these years, but it still resonated deeply. He felt that there are decent and indecent people, whether they are guards or prisoners.

Oh boy, this is definitely not turning out to be a very uplifting post. It's filled with all the turmoil I've been experiencing as I have reacted viscerally to the awful injustices I've related to while watching that show. I guess I've answered my own question (the title of this post): no, I don't think we all have a mean and cruel streak. Some people have the ability to be mean, I believe, but they fight against it, while others embrace it totally. Maybe it comes down to the age-old question of good and evil. Are we really fighting against two strong tendencies in our nature, and sometimes one wins and sometimes the other wins?

No, I don't think so. I believe we get to choose which way we go in life. Perhaps it's a series of choices, and as we get stronger in being kind to one another, it becomes less likely we will be seduced towards the dark side. What do you think?

A very sunny week

Me and Jonelle after our skydive

Last Wednesday we finally got that skydive in, Jonelle's first and my 4,192nd. I wrote about it on my other blog here, but since it was one of last week's highlights I'd like to discuss it a bit more. She was cool as a cucumber, unflappable but excited. She was more concerned about a young man who was in the class with her, in his early twenties, who was so scared he was shaking. He was in the plane with us and did just fine, too. In fact, he was bouncing all around and smiling from ear to ear afterwards.

I was really afraid before my own first skydive, a tandem. I slept poorly the night before and worried about it, and I asked my instructor dozens of questions, trying to delay the inevitable trip to the airplane. I wrote a long post about it, How I Became a Skydiver. Seeing the difference between our responses to the same experience, it makes me wonder if it's necessary to get into a state of anxiety or dread to have one's feelings translate into their opposite. Over the years of working as an instructor, I noticed the difference between those who saw the experience as something on their "bucket list" and those who felt driven to work through the fear they were experiencing. If something terrifies you and you do it anyway, you gain an advantage over it. And it never turns out to be quite what you feared anyway.

In the book I finished recently, Hallucinations, the author points out the difference in how memories are processed when one is in an altered state. Although our normal memories are not fixed but fluid, those traumatic events that can cause a flashback or PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) are stored in a different part of the brain and are recalled in vivid detail. Oliver Sacks (the author) said it is almost impossible to alter those memories, and researchers are still working to find ways to help those who suffer from debilitating flashbacks. That said, there is a huge difference between being in a war zone and the manufactured fear of jumping from an airplane in a controlled setting. Your mind may know the difference, but it's a rather unnatural thing to do. One's body has a tendency to react as if it is not going to survive. And when it is all over, the strong emotions remain, translated into happiness. That's my theory, anyway.

Not only was it sunny on Wednesday, our Thursday hike up Welcome Pass was without a cloud in the sky. This is usually the beginning of the "dry season" here in the Pacific Northwest, but we have not had a drop of rain in this area for more than a month. And now it's going to get drier, it seems. When we were on the ridge line after gaining the pass, we commented on the dry state of the plants. Usually at this time of the year there is still quite a bit of snow at that elevation, but not this year. Instead, much of the ground cover was burned and crackled under our boots. Although this is good for  us, giving us access to our hiking areas, it must be hard on the critters who are used to abundant water sources.

I know this may sound strange to some of my readers, but I really miss the partly cloudy skies and marine layer that gives us fog in the morning. Fortunately for me, I see that we do have a chance of a bit of a marine layer this morning and tomorrow, although it's pretty weak. Now, at 6:00am, the sun is rising into a clear blue sky, and it's calm with no wind at all. Maybe it's cloudy on the coast south of us, but nothing here. Tomorrow is the first of our "extra" hikes, an all-day affair where we drive more than a hundred miles to the Mountain Loop Highway and spend the day going up a hard hike. I'm hoping for at least a little bit of cloud cover, but I'm not expecting much. I'll be slathered with sunscreen and using my new hat with a wide brim.

The Trailblazers decided two years ago to add these hikes so we can go to places we cannot reach on our usual Thursday outings. I've really enjoyed learning more about this beautiful part of the country. We head out every other Monday and visit some spectacular areas. It's not actually considered part of the Senior Center's schedule, so we usually meet in the parking lot and figure out the carpool logistics. The group is usually smaller, too, since we start at 7:30 and don't return until more than twelve hours later. We certainly do get to know each other pretty well! I've been going out on these excursions with some of the same people for five years now, and a few of them feel like family.

Maybe it helps to suffer together, too. Since some of these hikes are steep and challenging, we have been known to moan and groan together as we make our way through the switchbacks and unremittingly beautiful scenery. I'm very happy to be in good enough shape to keep this up, for now at least, and I'm enjoying this very sunny summer season. Since the days are getting shorter already, and we will reach the point in between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox in a few days, I intend to squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of the summer that I can!

Clouds from both sides

Hiking above the clouds

Last Thursday's hike with the Trailblazers took us from dense fog to this: rising up above the clouds to gaze down on them, where they look like whipped cream covering the valley. This is one of the most wonderful aspects of the Pacific Northwest: the clouds. They were missing from Colorado's skies, at least clouds like these. I have been here for five years and am still mesmerized by the view of trees rising out of the mist.

It has caused a few problems, though, as that marine layer has sometimes been slow to burn off the past few weeks. Last Wednesday I was scheduled to skydive with my friend Jonelle (who would be making her first skydive, a tandem), but the weather never cleared all day. Then we rescheduled for this past Friday, and the same thing happened. (We have rescheduled for this coming Wednesday.) Yesterday the clouds didn't leave the Puget Sound area until 3:00pm. This means that today's planned activity, skydiving with Linnie and friends, might not happen. The past several weeks I've gotten at least three jumps each weekend, usually four.  I get accustomed to things going a certain way, and when it changes, my schedule goes awry. The recent holiday on the Fourth messed up my internal clock for more than a week.

Last night I slept like a log, the first time in several nights. It sure makes a difference in the way the world looks to me when I'm well rested. And at my age, my body is harder to roust out of the doldrums when I'm physically tired. A decade ago, I took for granted that I'd have boundless energy for everything I wanted to do, but these days I need to pick and choose my activities. That's not to say that I am not happily continuing to play in the sunshine and rain, but I've definitely slowed down. My sister Norma Jean makes me feel like a slacker, since every day she swims, has a vigorous walk, and attends yoga and Pilates classes weekly. She is probably in the best shape of her life right now as she approaches her 68th birthday. We spend a couple of hours every week together on video chat, and I must say that she simply glows with health. She continues to inspire me.

We've got a new hiker who has joined us the last two weeks, Doug. He shows every sign of becoming another regular, someone who shows up every week. Of course, the weather hasn't been especially challenging, and it's only the hardiest of the hardy who show up for a hike in the rain. We'll see. Many of the people I have grown to love and appreciate in that group are not hiking with us right now, either because of health issues or, in the case of Fred, having taken on a full-time job. It was so nice to see him on a hike a few Sundays ago, and he promised that he would be coming back to join us as soon as he's trained someone to take over his job.

Some of the people I exercise with at the gym have become good friends, such as Judy, and although she has a very full life, we find time to be together. During the summer I see much less of her because of her family activity, when her daughter and grandkids who live in the East visit, but it's during the long winter that I really appreciate us doing things together. We have taken day-long bus tours as well as the usual "dinner and a movie" that is our usual fare. Just last week she snuck away for a quick movie with me, but I won't be seeing much of her until late August.

Sitting here propped up in bed, laptop on my knees and partner sleeping beside me: this has become the time when I think about my life, contemplate where I am today and where I might be headed in the future. There are not many of life's hurdles left to climb, like those that young people are facing right now, since I'm retired from the world of work. Social Security and annuities are deposited in my checking account monthly. We will never be wealthy, or even have enough extra money to take long vacations, but it's enough that we don't have to worry about how to pay the bills. That gives me an opportunity to concentrate on what I want to do with the rest of my life.

One thing I've discovered I need is intellectual stimulation. Reading and writing blogs has helped to fill that void. My blogging friends are like part of my extended family, and I know as much about the lives of several of you as I do my own flesh-and-blood family. I feel very blessed to live in a time when virtual friends can become this important to me, and it's because of the vast changes in technology that have emerged during the past decade. I read recently that more than half of all Americans now have a smartphone. I myself need a keyboard to write, but I see more and more young people writing texts to each other on their phones. I wonder if any of them have made friends that they only know through electronic media.

This morning as I ponder how to wrap up this post about nothing in particular, I'm thinking of that Judy Collins song that inspired the title:

Bows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way 

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's cloud's illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

 Whatever you choose to do with yourself before we meet again, be well and, if you can, spend some time looking at those beautiful, mysterious clouds.

Remembering things right

Tiger lilies in the wilderness

I am in the process of reading Oliver Sack's 2012 book, Hallucinations, and it seems to be affecting me in ways I never expected. I'm having them, hallucinations, that is. Power of suggestion? I wonder. He explains in the book that there are many kinds of hallucinations, and I realized when reading it that I tend to have olfactory hallucinations. I smell things that aren't there. It happens fairly often, and I think it might be because I suffer from allergies and sometimes can't smell much of anything. And then suddenly, I get a powerful whiff, usually pleasant.

Yesterday I went to the garden store looking for an organic pesticide for the aphids that have begun to appear on some of my flowers. I bought some neem oil for my ailing columbines. While I was at the store, I stopped to smell the beautiful roses in the entryway, and I just loved their incredible odor, as they had opened and released their perfume in the sunshine. I also learned that many roses, hothouse ones in particular, don't have any smell. I wondered if it was my nose or what the story is. The ones I was smelling are bred for their scent, so it was very strong.

Then I went to REI to look for some new boots. (I'm not quite ready to buy, but I wanted to see what  version my current brand of boots looks like today.) I kept turning around looking for the rose scent I kept smelling, and there was nothing to indicate the source. After wandering around in the store for awhile, I realized it was my nose hallucinating the strong rose scent. Or was I remembering what I had recently smelled?

Another place in the book Sacks mentions the process of remembering, and how faulty memory actually can be. Some researchers have shown that people don't remember events in the same way as time goes on. Memories are not stored in the brain like photographs or audio recordings of events; memories are recreated when they are accessed. And when we access old memories, they are modified in subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways. I know when my sister Norma Jean and I compare memories of our childhood, our recollections can be wildly divergent. I used to think it is because we are different people experiencing the same events, but now I know that time has altered my memories, as well as hers.

It also makes me realize that eyewitness testimony is particularly useless. It's put innumerable people in jail for crimes they didn't commit, because the eyewitness was convinced their memory was correct, and it simply wasn't. Thank heavens for DNA evidence, which has cleared many innocent people. But I never considered how altered my own memory of events and people must be. I know that memories of my mother have altered through time, because I was never as fond of her in life as I am now. All the old hurts and resentments are gone, and all I have left are the wonderful memories, and even some hurtful memories are now affectionate recollections. The sting is gone, and the love remains.

I cherish the memories I have of my departed family and friends. Now that I realize that my memories of them are fluid, not fixed, it doesn't make them any less valuable, but after having been recreated within the chambers of my own mind, perhaps I can forget all the old hurts and resentments I've carried around by concentrating on the good parts and letting the rest be gently massaged into oblivion. Why should I haul out old grudges? They don't do anything but upset me.

Perhaps I can do the same thing with memories of shame and embarrassment I sometimes recall. In a way, I feel like I've stumbled on a technique that might give me peace and contentment about the past that I never considered. If memories are recreated every time I access them, I must also have some control over their effect upon me.

Today I am going to head down to Snohomish and play in the air with my friend Linny and whoever else shows up. I am intending to have a good time and come home tired and refreshed. I don't know how much longer I will be able to keep up this activity, but for now I am enjoying myself tremendously. And building up memories. On Wednesday my friend Jonelle from the hiking group is going to make a tandem, and I will go with her and jump out of the airplane at the same time. Not many people get to enjoy something like that together, so it's very exciting for both of us. Skydiving has given me many enjoyable memories.

It's time to get out of bed and start my day. I always begin my Sundays with this time together with the laptop and my blog. I think of what is most prominent in my mind and heart and try to capture the moment, as I tap the keyboard and read what comes out of my fingers. My partner is still asleep beside me, the tea is finished, and the birdsong coming through my open window is a harbinger of a wonderful day to come.

Happy Sunday to all, and one more thing: I ran across this lovely video on one of my blogging friends' website yesterday and want to share it with you. It's the shadow play of Raymond Crowe, an Australian entertainer (he calls himself an Unusualist on that link to his website). I found it to be simply enchanting. I hope you do, too. It's two and a half minutes of delight.

My siblings

Me, Norma Jean, PJ, Buz, Markee, and Fia in 1983

This picture was taken thirty years ago, in summer at our parents' home in Ft. Worth. It simply astounds me to realize that we were all so young, but we were also pretty much grown into the people we would become. There is an almost exactly twenty-year age difference between the oldest, me, and Fia, the youngest. Now Fia is a grandmother and is about to remarry next month at the age of fifty. When I saw her this past Thanksgiving, she told me she was very upset about the half-century mark she just crossed. She still looks very young to my eyes, but she feels as though she's practically got one foot in the grave.

I remember my fiftieth birthday. It was a tough one for me, too. Reaching fifty is a true milestone, and one that is hardest, I think, for women. You stop thinking of yourself as the person that most advertisements are geared toward, for one thing. The mature woman begins her journey into invisibility. I don't think it's quite as difficult for men. But what do I know? I look at my life partner and think he looks pretty much the same as when we met, but of course he doesn't. I can look at an old picture to realize that time has changed him also.

Fia was married to Jim for well over 25 years, and he told her one day that he was in love with another, younger woman. They separated and Fia went through a very difficult period. She was absolutely taken by surprise, since she thought their marriage, with two grown children who had already left home, was solid. She is very close to Markee, the sister closest to her in age, and their relationship helped to carry her forward into a new life, along with plenty of other family support. It was a truly rough patch, but she came through it and met a wonderful man who will become her husband next month. I am so happy for her.

Markee met and married a Canadian many years ago and moved to Alberta with him. She and Bob have raised three children, twin boys and a girl who is now in college. The boys are still at home, but Markee was a registered nurse who worked for most of her life, eventually moving into management. When I saw her at Thanksgiving, she was quitting her job, which had become onerous, and now she teaches young nurses. She has taken some of them to India, where they are ministering to others. (She may be back home by now, I'm not sure.) I hope she is happy with her life now, and I know that she and Fia are incredibly happy to have one another. After Fia's marriage next month, she and Russ (her intended) will honeymoon in Canada with Markee and her family.

My brother Buz. Right in the middle of all his sisters, he is probably one of the most sensitive and caring people I've ever known. He and his wife Phyllis are the family members that I stay with when I visit Texas. Their home and their life together fills me with peace and contentment when I am there. Buz was married once before, and his daughter Trish has married and recently graduated from college. I know about her life with Matt mostly from Facebook, since they live on the East Coast and I only see them occasionally. Buz is very proud of her, but Phyllis is the center of his life. Their marriage is strong; you can feel it when you are around them. Phyllis is one of the sweetest people I have ever known.

My sister PJ and I have never been close. She has two grown children who live close by her, and she has grandchildren who are the apple of her eye. She and her husband Stewart have had several health issues this past year, but things seem to be better lately. When PJ had a heart attack this past springtime, it was touch and go for awhile, but she is on disability (last I heard) and has gone into early retirement. I hesitate to call her, because right now things are good between us and I don't want to rock the boat. She and I get into tangles every time we try to communicate, it seems. I love her but we are just very different people, I guess.

And next comes Norma Jean, who most of my readers know is the family member I am closest to. We grew up together and share so many memories. She and her husband Pete were married almost a half century when he died in 2011. Although he wasn't very old, he was a smoker who developed emphysema and still couldn't completely give up cigarettes. They fought more about that issue than probably any other, and Norma Jean came close to leaving him over it several times. But they stayed together, and when he died, I went to Florida to spend three weeks with her afterwards. Their two children could not be more different from each other: Allison is a Lt. Colonel at the Pentagon, and Peter is a multitalented computer whiz who has recently come to live with Norma Jean. He was laid off from his job in Michigan and went off to California to seek his fortune. When nothing panned out, he came to live with Norma Jean in Florida and is a real help to her. I frankly feel much better about Peter being there. I worry about her and come up with some real doozies when she doesn't answer her phone. I don't know how long he will stay, but I hope it's for awhile. The two of them returned yesterday from a visit at Allison's.

And me, here in Bellingham with my life partner, with my two sons long gone from this earth, no grandchildren in the picture, but a full life nevertheless. I made four skydives yesterday with my friends in Snohomish, and today I'll head off into the wilderness with some of my hiking friends. Monday I will go to the movies with my friend Judy, and now that the Independence Day holiday is behind us, my routine can be reestablished. On Wednesday I will have a nice video chat with Norma Jean; it's so much better than a phone call, and we will visit for a couple of hours and share what's going on in our respective lives.

Thanksgiving 2012

This picture was taken last Thanksgiving, in the same birth order as the first picture. None of us look much like we did thirty years ago, but we are still here, still sharing the planet, and I feel incredibly blessed that my parents gave us life, gave us each other, and that we are all still here to enjoy life together. I know that one of us will die one day, and it will never be the same again. So I rejoice to know that the time has still not come and fervently wish for many, many more years together.

Pacific Northwest is hot, too

From lower-than-normal temperatures for weeks now to hotter-than-normal is what's happening right here in my area of the country. I've been reading about all the hot weather across the country. Pretty normal for summer (maybe hotter than usual), but we don't usually get any really warm weather around here until after the 4th of July. In the past, I've had to wear a sweater and carry a raincoat at this time of the year. But not now. It's getting pretty darn hot. Yesterday Bellingham reached 80 deg F. That may not seem warm to some of my readers, but trust me: we really feel it, not being used to warm humid air.

I spent the day yesterday at Snohomish, making four skydives and having a really good time with my friends. But as I was packing up my parachute after each jump, drops of sweat fell from my forehead onto the container. The dew point is also higher than usual, meaning that the humidity is high. After the fourth jump, I decided to bring it home unpacked and asked Smart Guy to pack it for me. He agreed, but it's just a pile of nylon sitting in the living room right now.

And it's just going to get hotter for the next few days. I read that several places in northern California broke temperature records yesterday. We don't have air conditioning in most of our homes here, because there are so few days when we really need it. We had the fan going all night, and that will probably be the situation for the next week or so. The only good part is that my garden will be happy, as long as I keep it watered (which I will).

I remember the second summer we were here, there was another heat wave. It got really really hot, and I was acclimatized after over a year when we didn't experience anything over 80 degrees. We broke lots of records here in the Pacific Northwest in late July 2009. We are not likely to break too many this time, since it's supposed to be short-lived and much worse on the east side of the Cascades. But that doesn't mean we won't complain mightily. Today I'll spend some time in a movie theater with my friend Judy, where it'll be cool and comfortable.

I am not looking forward to the upcoming holiday. I don't know what it is about fireworks that attracts so many people to set them off for days. Although the Fourth isn't until Thursday, I suspect that we will have to endure nights of hot weather along with bursts of rocket fire. With the windows open, the sounds are even worse. Plus the buses won't be running, and the Y will be closed for the holiday. In retirement, the holidays are my least favorite times. My entire routine is disrupted. When I was working, I appreciated having the time off to enjoy myself, but now it's just the opposite. I'll get my bike off the front porch and go for a spin, maybe take a bit longer ride than usual, find some new bike routes. Just got to get a little creative.

Well, I just read over what I've written so far and realize I sound really grumpy! I guess I am a little, since I didn't sleep well last night, tossing and turning and never cooling off sufficiently. I just looked to see what the temperature was yesterday in Boulder, my old home town, and it was 91. I would have been grumpy there, too. Is it getting hotter everywhere, or is it just my imagination? Many of my blogging friends have been complaining about hotter-than-usual weather lately, with plenty of damaging storms. I should count my blessings instead of concentrating on the downside of my current situation, don't you think? I could be living in Texas, where most of my family lives, sweltering in really hot conditions.

Is it part of the human condition that I compare my life to others to make myself feel better? There is a woman that I see on the bus every now and then who is in a wheelchair and must be paralyzed from the neck down. She uses one of those mouth controls that gives her amazing agility. I watch her drive her chair up the bus ramp and turn 180 degrees and back into the space where the bus driver then straps her chair in. I just looked up the way it's controlled, and it's called a "sip-and-puff" system. Inhaling and exhaling to control the movement. She also has another person with her at all times, but he doesn't seem to do anything to assist her and seems to be there just in case. As I've thought many times, there but for the grace of God...

I hope if I am ever disabled that I will get out and enjoy life to the best of my ability. I've had my share of accidents and have screws and pins that are permanent parts of my body, but it works just fine, with only a twinge of discomfort now and then. Heck, most people when they get to seventy have aches and pains, so I will concentrate on the good parts. I feel gratitude for being ambulatory and still able to jump out of airplanes just for the fun of it.

Well, now that I've given myself that attitude adjustment, finished my morning tea and am now looking forward to the day, it's almost time to get out of bed, dress, and water the garden before it gets hot. I hope wherever you are today, you will take care of yourself and look for the blessings that may be hiding in unexpected places.