Day Before Solstice

I spent a big chunk of time on the phone today: my usual call to Queenie, followed by one from Master J, who was going for some medical tests and wanted to talk over possible questions she might ask. I meant to do some yard work before it got hot, but that didn't happen. I worked on my packing a little bit. I keep finding things unexpectedly, but spending an exasperating amount of time looking for other things. Today, for instance, I found the carrying strap to my smaller bag. Since I'd been looking for the carry strap to the larger bag, I thought "Okay, I guess I'll just use this slightly smaller one." And two minutes later, I found the strap to the bigger bag--IN the small bag. Where I had looked a million times.

I wrote only a small amount today, mostly because I felt so sleepy. The heat dome has reappeared. It wasn't really that hot out, but my body just doesn't like it. Right before solstice, too, so the light is at a very demanding angle for us northerners. I feel it's siesta time, although that's not the custom up here. I shook myself awake to prepare some vegetables: stir-fried green onions, regular onions, red bell pepper, mushrooms, a bit of celery, bok choy, and a sprinkling of peanuts, with oyster sauce and hoisin sauce. They were very tasty.

It's been so hot and dry that I thought my plants might need watering. I'm anxious about leaving them, because it doesn't look as if it will rain while we're gone. So I thought maybe I should get out that drip hose that I insisted on hauling all the way from Pennsylvania . . . . Well that's where the day kind of went to hell. First I had to extricate it from the garage where it had become buried under a potpourri of things that I blush to enumerate. Then I tried to lay it down over plants already in place. FYI: put your drip hose down BEFORE you plant things. Sigh. Well, I just didn't think of that. Also, don't store it coiled up in a garage for a long time, because it won't flatten out and will thrash around like an octopus, threatening to decimate the plants you're trying to help. And finally, check your hose BEFORE you get it all set up. Otherwise, you will turn on the water and then you will find out where the hose leaks. Oh woe. I also cut myself on something, so it's good I had a tetanus booster recently. Tomorrow I will have to unwind the whole show and test the third, so far unused drip hose. IF it doesn't leak, I'll substitute that one. I had neither daylight nor the wherewithal to do it tonight, so I turned off the water and skulked back inside, where I solaced myself with watching a couple of episodes of Everest: Beyond the Limit, in which people screw up on Mount Everest and make my failings look smaller. Lots of opportunities to practice having patience with myself . . . .

I can't remember if I already said this, so I'm just going to go ahead and repeat myself: before I started watching any of these Everest shows, I had a dream where I was driving down a straight road. Directly in front of me, I saw Mount Everest, looking EXACTLY the way it looks on TV: Huge, that unique shape, and with the snow smoking off the summit under a blazing blue sky. My car was pointed straight at the mountain. I shouted "Chomolungma! Chomolungma!" which is in fact the Tibetan name of the mountain. But I was thinking "How the heck am I going to get up there?" Drive on . . . .