We are still having cool nights requiring only a sheet and, nearer dawn, a very light blanket. However, days routinely have been getting close to 98º or more. In fact, there have been several days over 100º just around the Mountain in Weed.
I don’t remember these temperatures in the 45+ years I have lived here.
My system of opening windows as temperatures begin to drop after sundown and closing them at the coolest time of the morning, thereby using cross-ventilation for cooling off the house, seems to be working.
But we aren’t the only areas having unusual weather. The US northwest, Seattle, Portland, and Yreka among areas reported, were averaging temperatures in triple digits. Europe is having extreme heat and widespread fires where they haven’t had them in the past.
Cooling centers are common everywhere.
We’ve even had excessive heat warnings here in McCloud.
And the big fire near Yosemite has burned over 18,000 acres so far.
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Last week there was a shooting in Rochester NY involving police officers. Mark monitors the news back there because he knows many of the officers still working.
One of his friends died in that shooting.
The officer who died was one of the officers who had been under Mark’s command, who Mark had trained in Emergency response, and the shooting was within a couple of blocks of where Mark had been shot when he was a new officer back in ‘97.
It was a fairly tense few days.
Mark will travel back for the funeral.
The other upheaval in “normal” here was Kamille and Francis’s annual visit to her family in Baltimore. They will be gone two weeks.
More about both of those events in a later blog.
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The bad news here, although not nearly so bad, is that my sink disposal stopped working friday evening.
Living on the farm, I never had an in-sink disposal. I had animals and a compost pile to take care of that situation.
I had even once toyed with the idea of getting a disposal attached to a catch bucket or some similar way to recycle that stuff to the compost heap for quick decomposition and for use as fertilizer on flowers and garden.
So, I am a new user and didn’t know all the rules such as no eggs shells or coffee grounds and who knows what else, but I will learn when the new unit is installed and I have a user manual.
While assessing the trouble with the disposal, Mark found that the original (?) installation has the connection from the disposal to the adjacent connecting water line angled uphill. I don’t know what he has planned for that.
Meanwhile, he cleared something so that the sink involved now drains however slowly and is usable for doing dishes (which I do by hand two or three times a week because I can then clean under my fingernails).
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The session of This American Life this week dealt with Funny Funerals and gave me this story.
A family’s Dad died and, as is usual, the family provided the clothing in which he was to be buried .
A service was scheduled to be held in the funeral provider’s facilities. It was a nice service following which the coffin was to be closed and further services were to be held at the cemetery.
Then, several weeks later, at a church service in the family’s regular church one of the sons got a strange look on his face.
Following the service the mother asked the son what was going on and the reply was “The pastor was wearing Dad’s tie.”
Evidently the pastor had really liked the tie so before the casket was closed and put in the hearse, he had helped himself to the tie.
It’s hard to think he believed it would not be recognized, but it was and he was sued under some law about desecrating a corpse and the family collected a rather good sum.
That story reminded me of when I had to bring my mother home from Missouri, where she had been visiting my sister, when she died of a massive heart attack. The immediate requirements were handled and I made plans to have her accompany me on the plane going home … in the cargo section of course.
I knew she had mentioned which dress she wanted for her burial, but it was in California. So I had her put in a nice slip to travel and await redressing after she was home.
The family still laughs about how embarrassed Mama might have been to travel in only a slip and how Daddy, who had died earlier, would probably be grinning over the entire situation.
They are buried side by side. Daddy’s headstone holds all his personal dates including his Navy service.
Mama’s reads simply “His Wife”.
I would have added her name, but anyone who knew them, or has done any good genealogy, knows who she was.
Oh well …
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Also heard a report on takeout containers which suggested you take your own biodegradable containers. I wonder what the reaction would be if I show up with my own box when I eat out.
Still, it might be worth a try.
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My friend Atara, who lives half of each year in Israel where her daughter and granddaughter live, was here for a visit with me while she was in this area. Her husband’s children live in middle California. So they are here half of each year and the rest of the year they live near Haifa.
She brought me a jar of Israeli milk chocolate and taught me how to use an app on my phone which we can use to talk with each other when she is at home in Haifa as long as I remember the time difference and don’t call when it is after midnight there.
We were both active in the local amateur radio club but neither are using our radios much any more.
It was a nice visit. I will enjoy being able to talk without worrying about expensive long distance fees.
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Last sunday was National Tequila Day. Interesting.
No comment.
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More good news was that Francis had been in a swim meet recently and won two first place medals. The first was when he swam as third swimmer in a relay race.
The team in the third lane was ahead by nearly a full pool length at the end of the second swimmers.
Then it was Francis’s team’s turn to swim, in the fourth lane. By the end of Francis’s laps he had closed the gap and the teams were tied.
Not bad for a kid who didn’t want to be on a team, but signed up just so he could be in the water when free swimming was not allowed and who got into the water by sliding down the side of the pool. Just two years later he had to master a racing dive and execute a perfect turnaround before swimming good enough to close the gap between the third and fourth lane swimmers thereby setting it up for his team to win.
Francis was followed by his swimming buddy, also a good swimmer, and their team won by about 25 feet, about half a pool length.
Then in the singles breast stroke, Francis won another first medal.
You could hear his mother yelling “Go Go Francis … Go!”
This grandmother would have been yelling too had she been there.
He took his medals with him to show to his other Grandmother and his Grandfather.
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I got the first bird feeder hung up and the first taker arrived. It was a Jay.
Now I need to get another feeder surrounded by a screen with openings which allow the smaller birds access but keep the bigger ones like jays out.
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To end the week …
Today is an unusual day. You’ve never lived this day before. You’ll never live this day again. Live it as it has been given you and be glad.
So, ‘til next week …