the ridiculousness of being an early riser

Who would voluntarily get up and get going at 5 in the morning (or was it 4:30?)  if they didn't have to? What insanity propels you to shower, to dress and to step outside and do some random weed picking then? I have no good answers for you. All I know is that Ed mumbled something about having to plant tomatoes before it's too hot and that woke my brain up to the idea of being up and out then as well and once the motors started churning (and the door had been left open, and the cat came in, and climbed all over me), well then it became a foregone conclusion: I would join him outside, though not really join him in his work because the tomatoes are mostly his project and the rest of the garden -- mine. 

 

 

 

I didn't have to feed the animals -- he had done that -- and so I got busy pulling out junk weeds from the flower beds and I thought about how right now, all that's blooming is so difficult to photograph! Like, the false indigo.

And the white iris: ever try to do a credible photograph of a white iris half exposed to the now streaming sunlight?

I had a sort of mini breakfast alone, with a cat - not the one who had climbed all over me, but the decent one, who doesn't do jerky things like that when a person is hovering between sleep and wakefulness.

Fruits and honey. 

 

 

 

That's it for now, because at a decent hour, I had a real breakfast date with my good friend who is in town right now.

In fact, you might say that this is my week for friendship because I see at least one and most often two of my very oldest friends every single day, all the way through Wednesday. More on that later. Today wechatted, interrupted several times by phone calls concerning my mother's care. Which is complicated and with challenges, because forever anxious people present their own sackful of never ending quagmires. 

Barbara (my visiting friend) and I then walked State Street -- that street that joins our university campus with the state Capitol. I had read that they were experimenting with turning it entirely into a pedestrian zone, with flamingos and all to make you feel safe about walking in the middle of a once busy street.

Good luck with that! Since major arteries cross State Street, you're never really safe and carefree. And some blocks did not have pink flamingos on them at all, making me wonder if maybe it's only safe in the pink parts, and on certain days or hours -- which, of course, means that you should stick to the sidewalk if you really want to avoid being smashed down by a car.

 

Errands to run, more weeds to pull and then it's time to pick up the kids.

It's hot outside today and it will be even hotter tomorrow and the next day. You might say yay! Looking ahead, I see that the period of excessive heat will end with two days of storms. I'd like the rain without the storms. But for now, I'm sort of enjoying the heat. Like, for example, it is the first day this year that I am seen out and about in short shorts.

I dont really think it's entirely correct for people who are 71+ years old to be seen in town wearing short shorts, but I've stopped caring about such details the day I submitted my retirement papers at the university. 

I drive up for the kids in the hottest part of the day. 79F (26C). They always tell me the car is hot when they get into it. Well sure it is! I'm not going to run the AC while I stand and wait for them to emerge! All this is part of my vague plan to toughen up the next generation of young ones. With a hot car comes the story -- when I was your age, I sat on vinyl seats in the back of a smoke-filled car with no AC whatsoever for hours on end as we made our way across the country "to see the USA in our Chevrolet," only it wasn't really our Chevrolet, it belonged to the government of Poland. The kids have no idea what vinyl seats are but they felt plenty empathy for a world without AC.

We don't drive far. today They twist my arm to give them time in the school playground. I park, they play.

There follows a complicated afternoon. Food, books, play, but interrupted by many phone calls. Many moving pieces in my mother's impending return to her assisted living quarters. Luckily, my ASC (annoying summer cold) ran its cycle, though according to at least one report, I should be on antibiotics for it. Something about maybe a collapsing lung... Well fine. I can dose up. I have a super week before me, may as well get rid of whatever it is they think I need to get rid of.

Late, very late, Ed and I drive over to Natalie's Greenhouse to pick up some more watermelon seedlings. We lost the wee ones we put in a few weeks back. Chickens? Weather? Groundhog? All of the above? Who can tell. Ed puts in the new ones, I water my radichios and romains and radishes. 

 

 

Late supper, late bedtime, late everything tonight! I am aiming to at least have a later wake up tomorrow!