Still Hot

Last night, I think we got too stubborn. No, we will not run the AC in May. We will not! 90F (32C)? We can handle it! 

We handled it, but when I went upstairs to sleep, it was brutal. Keeping the windows open was not a good idea. The hot air came up from below, came in from outside, came in from every corner of the farmette lands. I'm sure we handily topped 95F in there! I came down, I rested on the floor, I went back up -- still hot. Cold water, cool sheets and the power of imagination: I fell asleep, stubbornly resisting the flip of the AC switch.

This morning, we kept the windows closed.

Despite the storm warnings, we had no rain yesterday, so the garden, if you can believe it, is looking a little summer weary. The daffodils and tulips are cycling through the stage of looking perky to looking spent. Well, that's okay. May is a month for the next stage spring blooms. I'm ready for the flowering fruit trees, for the violets in the lawn, yes, for the dandelions. It's all very pretty. A few photos from the farmette, in the heat of May:

Breakfast, with a bunch of garden daffodils. The doubles bloom later than the classic single yellows.

I tend to take photos closer to the farmhouse in early spring because that's where I plant most of the bulbs, but in fact, my daily walks and inspections focus very much on the fields beyond, like on this much loved Big Bed. Every plant here is known and coddled! 

I did not work (much) in the flower beds today. My car needed its annual checkup. Unfortunately, the car service center is on one of the uglier streets in town (it's alongside other car dealers -- one after the other -- alternating with many dental offices and very uninteresting strip malls). I had 90 minutes to spare and I went for a walk  and because my surroundings were so uninspiring, I brooded about my writing projects going forward. The one I'd just finished (to be trumpeted here quite soon!) was so brazen! I'm sure it will provoke comments, because when you write about life under so called communism, you are asking for it, from all sides! 

But the fact is, memoirs are always like that: people who read them often believe they would have made better decisions under similar circumstances. We are forever optimistic about our own ability to improve upon the lives of others. (Not so much our own.) So, here I am, releasing something that is almost the opposite of a typically tame Ocean page. And where do I go from there? Back to the safety of a less controversial topic, or do I continue on that other path -- the one I took in my Great Writing Project?

I don't have an answer yet. I'm thinking about it. Maybe by the next visit to the car service place on awful Odana Road, I'll have come up with a path forward. I've got six months! (My, they milk you for service appointments with new cars! No wonder I lived so long with old wrecks!)

In the evening, Ed and I packed a picnic of tacos from Tapatios Cocina Mexicana and we drove to Observatory Hill right around sunset (which today falls at 8:10p.m.). It was still in the 80sF, but the breeze was exquisite. The sunset part was left mostly to the imagination, as a cloud layer at the horizon covered the flaming disk that we had before us on the drive to the hill.  

(the hazy view from the hill)

But still, it was lovely. 

Selfie time!

As usual, we were not the only ones there to watch the day recede and the dusk set in. A couple stood by their car, with a pooch in their arms. And then a pair of bikers, who lived down the hill and had to be doing the climb for the exercise, because why else, took the trouble to pause and tell us we looked picture worthy. Then they pedaled off. And I thought -- if we're picture worthy, I should do a timed release photo. I placed the camera in the middle of the road knowing darn well no car was going to run it down.

A summer-like outing to commemorate our great fortune in life, at this time, in this place.

With love...