I saw a carrot fall from the sky and land a few feet away from me. That's not a common occurrence, so I enjoyed the Kafkaesque moment before I observed that an enterprising squirrel had stolen a carrot stick from the beaver's habitat, only to drop it when he ran up a tree.
I earned my Good Aunt points last Saturday. The kids were in town for Zeke's qualifying swim meet and I went to watch for a little while. Apparently the way qualifying meets work is that you're there for three hours in the morning, of which your own kid will at four various times do his laps, for a total of about two minutes of swimming. This is repeated in the afternoon, and then again the next day. The rest of the time the parents sit in chairs and do whatever. Heat index was 104. I earned my minimum Good Aunts points by going for the morning three hours, and then treating them all to lunch afterwards. (BTW, Zeke qualified for his areas, so the kids get to repeat this is other cities, lucky them)
My new airbrush came in, so I went through the learning curve on it. It's not quite the same as opening a can of spray paint and, well, painting. You have to thin the paint (and learn how to make the thinning solution). You have to figure out how much to thin the paint (exactly how thick is milk?). You have to figure out how to clean the airbrush, and how to make the cleaning solution. And figure out how to use it. But it was fun, and the Rocky puppet is now painted and put together, and hopefully tomorrow I'll string him up and figure out how to make him move.
Small sigh. I keep reading that it's important to have a social life, and to make new friends. It seems that for me the best way to make a new friend is to go to the cottage and build one. I had a moment this week -someone posted on the local Maker Space page a question of "Does Anyone Here Make Puppets?" Bingo! I immediately posted back that yes, sometimes I make puppets. And what type was she interested in? I was set - maybe we could exchange messages. Maybe get together to talk about puppets and puppet ideas. Heck - maybe build together.
Or perhaps my comment would be met with the sound of crickets. At least I tried.
I had another one of the "who the hell am I" moments. When I realize that I'm not the same Ann as when I was Bob-and-Ann. I've often talked about rarely having drive myself - I sat and knit, or chatted, and somehow we got where we needed to go. When I started driving myself, it was strange to try to figure out how to get around in a city that I've lived in for 45 years (granted that it's constantly changing). But after that morning swim meet, I followed the kids to their Air BnB so Zeke could change, and we went to lunch together. Then we went back, and I headed home. On the way to the BnB, I had noticed a street name, and through "cool - that street will take me to Capital Circle, and then it's a straight shot home." I used Google maps anyway, and it gave me a slightly different route - and when I saw that street name, my thought was "there's a Wawa gas station on the corner, and I can treat myself to an iced coffee."
Since when do I carry maps in my head? Who is this person?
Fortunately we don't seem to be getting hit with the massive heat wave that's covering a lot of the country. We're just having normal heat - which is about the same that everyone else is getting. I had an interesting thought about it on Tuesday, the day the heat index hit 111. I had been reading an article about how astronauts have to become re-acclimated when they come to back to Earth. Not just the physical rehabilitation, but the psychological - too many people, too much stimulus, too much just everything after being in a confined area for months. The line that got me was "gravity seems like a theatrical performance."
That's how I feel about the high heat - it doesn't seem quite real. It is, in fact, surreal. You step outside, and you look around for a fire, or a grill, or *something* to try to see where it's coming from. Heat like this doesn't just happen, does it? It feels artificial. A performance is the perfect way of putting it.
And we're just in what's called the Florida pre-heating stage, so I guess I'd better settle down for a long run.
