Thursday, 6/30/16

Truckasaurus points out that I haven’t posted to this blog since June 7th.  Well, the longer I put it off, the harder it is to pick it up again.  Since then I have:  Driven to and from Raleigh for the State Democratic Convention (interesting), attended the Mountain Moral Monday featuring the Rev. Dr. William Barber (inspiring), driven to Greenville and back to get my hair done (getting tiresome), attended 4 meetings (ho hum),  attended 2 fundraisers (fun), had my annual visit with the dermatologist (all clear), watched a comedic performance called Shakespeare Abridged (silly), worked at Relay for Life where I met a talented young dog named Jax (photo courtesy of JC Cagle), scrubbed down the back porch and washed the windows, stayed home for 2 servicemen (Bill the Bugman and Ed the fridge repairman) and celebrated another birthday.  This is retirement?  Washing the windows may have been a mistake.  This evening I found a dead bird on the deck.  It probably tried to fly through the clean, but solid window and smashed its brains.  I tossed it over the rail into the thick undergrowth, where all forest lovers want to go at the end.

Going into July, I am getting ready for the holiday and friends coming to town for a week.  We have also learned that Hillary Clinton and the President are going to be campaigning next Tuesday in Charlotte and a bunch of us are talking about going.  The problem is, no one has yet announced exactly where and when it will happen and whether it’s open to all comers or by invitation only.  The latest is that it will happen between 12:30pm and 3:30pm, but there’s still no venue or other info.  So, how do I plan for the big fireworks on the 4th, along with an invitation from unrelated people to a pre-party, and then, early the next day, a carpool of an unknown number of faithful on a  3-4 hour road trip to an unknown location for an uncertain event?  I have an innate need to be organized and these are things that overwhelm me.

Whatever.  It will all work out.

I was thinking that it had been awfully hot this June, but when I added up all the numbers, it turned out to be about the same as the past two years, except drier.  This part of the world is officially in a Severe Drought.  It’s raining lightly tonight.  I stood in it awhile and it felt nice.  Maybe we’re moving into a wetter period.  Just don’t wash out the fireworks!  Our average low this month was 61.8 degrees, compared to 61.9 in 2015 and 62.3 in 2014.  The average high was 84.1 degrees, compared to an identical 84.1 in 2015 and 82.0 in 2014.  We have eked out 2.53″ of rain, usually from brief, light showers.  This was a little less than in 2015 (3.5″) and much less than 2014 (5.07″).

Let’s see how many pictures I can squeeze into this post.  The silhouette is what happens in my living room at this time of year just before the sun disappears behind the ridge.