RTMT: Peely-Wally Cloud Burn

Narratives that begin with weather, to me, hold promise or potential ennui. This may be one of those moments, only because the weather in my little glen is very typical for this time of year. For those of you who live in the rest of the big world, your experiences with weather are very different from mine. Take heart, I do have empathy and experience: I have lived in (no particular order) Texas, Georgia, Illinois, New Mexico, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, California, Arkansas (as a very tiny girl), and Colorado, and even overseas. I don't want to type where I lived overseas because it may get me pulled over by the TSA in some odd twist. I know humidity, big thunderstorms, tornado warnings, sweltering summer nights that are indescribable, slow heat cookers in clay pots with water and vinegar flaying the meat off my bones. There is no sleep, no rest for the wicked in these areas. Here it seldom, rare as firefly on the other side of Rockies, generates enough heat to have thunderstorms big as Texas, or heat that makes one long for sprinklers and Otterpops (lime, naturally) in the front yard.

This is one of those mornings. It is 61 degrees Fahrenheit for the high, 46 low, winds from the south 8 mph, the summer leaves fritter on branches, seeming confused, or disappointed, like they planned for a picnic, made apple pie and fried chicken, and forgot to pack umbrellas. The summer leaves sit in the station wagon listening to AM talk radio and static-y country/western music.

Truth be known, I love the weather here. Yes, I have to supplement my diet with hefty amounts of Vitamin D, coffee, and I give the tanning salons many a second-glance when I pull out of the grocery store parking lots. I laugh at advertisements for bikinis and cocktail shakers, and all those "entertain your guests" Target fliers where beverages sweat in buckets of ice and someone went a little heavy on the chlorine in the pool. It just doesn't happen around these here parts, ya'll.

What do we do here in the North-Northwest, under a mountain's smug, condescending shrug? (Cuidado, Sir Rainier, see what happened to St. Helen? Nothing like a little Pacific ring of fire to bring a mountain down.)

We read.
We play video/computer games.
We buy a lot of blue tarp if we're the woodsy type.
Some of us attempt to write.

I could be working on bad plants. Bad, bad, evil plants. The blackberry vines have taken over like a bad scene out of Sleeping Beauty. Their roots and tendrils go deep underground for miles, so that when you pull one up, you're just as likely to be pulling it from Mulkiteo as you are from Seattle. It's best if I just left them alone for now, because gods know if I try to poison them, the salmon will suffer, and I don't want that.

In order to feel some heat out of the muffled, woolly days (summer weather usually begins jokingly but truthfully after July 4th), I also attempt to write, and make lists. Lists are like mental road maps. I will never get anywhere unless I know where I am going.

Today:
1. Shower. Not a long bubble bath. Shower. Check.
2. Read Facebook posts:

• Friend asked, for the good of the group, if Fifty Shades was worth reading, and most of the ladies said not unless you have something better to read. 
• My mom put this up:

3. Read blog posts:

Tome's

Eriny's - where the word "peely-wally" reference is employed

Navi's, naturally

Neri Approves has a poignant post today

4. This is someone I follow. Many of you will be very confused. I am. Read it, though: The Weed - it's interesting.

5. Need to finish The Death Knight story TODAY--stupid surgery and Azeroth. The deadline is July 7th.

6. Dancing Tree posted The Nicest Thing, and that question got me thinking...needs to be another post.

There may be another wolf, a third wolf. The runt of the litter that also needs care. I'll see if I can find it some Vitamin D and coffee, too.

Postscript: I have a reading list coming ya'll's way. Stay tuned.