Sky last night as we set out for our walk: 2+ miles, bringing my total yesterday to 4.9 miles, which felt very good.
The weather had cleared miraculously after a big line of storms went through in the afternoon. My husband, who had had meetings on campus, got home just as things were really blowing up and said he was glad to have gotten here. It wasn't quite a tornado, but the kind of weather where you wouldn't be surprised if one touched down: massive wind, heavy rain, the bang of a transformer blowing up somewhere, though our lights stayed on. My husband said that lots of trees had already come down, possibly in day before yesterday's version of the same storm, along but fortunately not over the road into town, and that he thought more would come down.
Our little front-yard redbud got split in that day-before-yesterday storm. It had a divided trunk, and I guess between the wind, the rain pounding it, and its own weight, the heavier trunk just sheared right off. My husband has hauled the tree section to the street --- it still wasn't that big --- and painted the trunk with some compound to keep bugs out, so we hope the rest of the tree survives. If it doesn't, I'll plant dwarf fruit trees and make the front yard an orchard, but I really hope it does survive. I could plant the fruit trees anyway.
A good time last night with my friend Jill's book club, via Zoom: they in Kansas, I in my dining room. It was a lovely end to a day of various frustrations, including being locked out of my primary email account (thank you, Microsoft). There were emails I tried sending from my phone, which would let me into the account for a while, but then wouldn't send them --- so I copied them into Gmail and sent them, because some of them were responses to things I really wanted to answer promptly . . . and so today, when I've finally gotten back in, the original responses my phone wouldn't send yesterday have all sent, and everyone has received a duplicate of what they got yesterday. I've spent some time first thing this morning sending Please disregard notes.
On deck for today:
*walk the dog
*do some strength and balance exercises
*write another Sun essay (yesterday: Dorothy Parker)
*my husband and I meet with a financial planner dude, because people who are 58 and 61 are not really all that much too young to begin considering their retirement options.
*various household tasks, probably including washing and folding more towels. Holy cow, the towels people use here.
It's going to be another humid one here: 88F for a high, but 94% humidity. The temp right now, before 9 in the morning, is a lovely 69, but with humidity it (supposedly, but I believe it) feels like 78. So 88 will feel like . . . yuck. I so tire of summer. I really do.
Wearing today:
Sierra, in a summery guise. Not only is she redyed this stunning dark green (rescuing her from the gray-sweatshirt doldrums), but she's providing a backdrop for my Bandi pocket belt, which pretty much springifies anything (I will probably buy another one for winter . . . not today, but sometime). Xero Jessie sandals, again to make everything look cool and summery, but also to provide a pale contrast to my dark hemline.
I wasn't sure about this. Usually I wake up knowing what I feel like wearing, but today I didn't. This dress is always a good default, though, when I'm not sure. And now that it's all put together, I really like the outcome.
I have been loving this silhouette all summer. Really, it's how I had hoped the Sofia would look on me, but it didn't. Imagine my surprise to discover that I had had that dress in my closet all along . . .
So now I can carry my phone and lip balm on my walk without needing to use my pockets, and without carrying a super-obvious belt pack. I love my other belt pack and will still wear it a lot, but this is a nice alternative to have.
Continuing to read Ngaio Marsh, but also picking up J.A. Baker's The Peregrine, which is just a glorious book to soak in, a little bit at a time. After a while all the birdwatching drama starts to run together, but taken in discrete episodes, the nature writing is so intensely beautiful and alive as to be its own education in how to write prose.
I've also been deliberately picking up The Making of Poetry, a book which honestly should not take a year and a half to read --- but then should is a poisonous word. For whatever reason, it is taking me that long. But it's also making me recognize and love what was really great about Wordsworth and Coleridge, and to find their greatness exhilarating, as if I could be swept up in it, too, though I think my own vision and gift fall far, far short of their kind of greatness.
So I'd better let the dog out, then try to get down to some work. I'm experiencing the usual ADHD "appointment at 2/whole day shot" syndrome right now, but MUST FIGHT BACK.