Mad Dogs and Englishmen
8:11 p.m. - 2003-05-20


I cannot believe what a difference the absence of those two trees makes. This is going to be a roasto summer because of it, I can tell already. I came home at lunch to tend to my plants and it was already hot in the house. It is only in the eighties, for pete's sake. So I will have to fake a tree. Today I went to Orchard Supply and bought more shade cloth. I am going to stretch it across the trellis over the freedom doors and use some in the windows on the sunny sides of the house. It should be more fun than usual because they are now making clever gromots (grommets, grommits, grommots?) to put on the edges. I have a nice big hanging shade cloth I made about 5 years ago, but he packed it away in the black hole (garage) last year and who knows if it will ever emerge again to the light of day...

So I went out at noon to tend to the plants and got plenty hot then too. If I ever get the energy to dig the garden (or make him do it) it should be a good garden year with all the new sunshine. My new crop of cucumbers is doing better, which isn't saying much, because anything is better than the dead of my first batch. This year I am not so into it, I don't know why, so I think I will just throw the seeds out there and see what happens. At least there will be sage and rosemary and basil and cucumbers. And one dratted cat, may he overdose on catnip. One year, the neighbor's cat was making me so mad that I bought some catnip and kept throwing it over the fence to keep him stoned and in his own yard. I toyed with the idea of putting it in the middle of the street during commute time, but my better nature prevailed.

Must get my mind off felinecide. Right now American Idol is on, but we are recording it. I like to fast forward through the talking parts. I am sort of hoping Clay wins. Are women partial to androgeny? Or is it just that slightly fey men seem less threatening? Or is it that they seem childlike and appeal to the maternal in us? But then lots of us also liked the Marine, so who knows?

Darsey has gone on vacation so it will be quiet in the office until next week. Today I had a file on some property just across the main street nearby. I wrote down the addresses so I can show the map to him and ask him what development might be going in there. He usually knows, having been on the planning commission for years, and even now he hears things from cronies.

He just came home, so I better go heat up his dinner.