Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Too Darn Hot

It's too darn hot. And it's not a dry heat.

When I went on my walk this evening, even in the relative cool of dusk, it felt as if I were inhaling Silly Putty with each breath. Silly Putty is also what I think my brain has turned into.

The Daily Office? Fuggetaboutit. I couldn't even manage the short-form prayers today. And my copy of Bonhoeffer's Ethics lies unread in the back seat of my car. I can't even think of one worthwhile thing to post here.

Not that I am alone. My book discussion group members have all gone AWOL...I think perhaps to the beach. Where they're not reading the book in question.

"'Rest and quietness,'" notes The CEO. "'Be still and know that I am God.' Try it. Don't just do something -- stand there!"

"Is it okay if I lie down instead?"

It's too darn hot.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or you could always pick berries.

That's what I did, in today's heat. I got up to about 3/4 of a gallon of blackcaps (black raspberries, my faves---they're right at the end of their run here in my neck o' the woods) . . . till the heat got to me.

I washed em off w/ the garden hose (knowing they had bugs in 'em, that I didn't want to bring inside) . . . and then I did the same w/ my face! :-D

'Tis the season, to get hosed . . .

LutheranChik said...

We have just a few blackcap plants here and there in my neighborhood.

I'm a great fan of wild blackberries (which usually ripen just before school starts)...when I was a kid I used to go picking with my aunt and uncle. (I can basically pick berries of any kind all day...my hunter-gatherer/peasant stock instincts coming to the fore...I KNEW I had a career aptitude in there somewhere!;-)). And I don't even mind the special logistics of blackberry picking -- flannel shirts, etc.

The big problem with berry picking up north these days is, sadly, the paranoid-backwoods-psychopath factor; there simply aren't that many safe places to go, unless you know someone with wild property, who doesn't take advantage of the berries herself. We also have issues with hidden meth labs up here in God's country, so you can be innocently hiking through state land when suddenly you find yourself in a Very Dangerous Situation with scary, strung-out, often armed people playing with explosive chemicals.

And all of this is really too bad, because when I was a kid I just loved wandering around in the woods doing stuff like this. Up around Houghton Lake they used to have huckleberry plants, back along the fire trails in the woods, that would be just loaded with almost cultivated-sized berries; one year we literally sat in the car and picked the berries from either side of the trail. Those were the days...

Anonymous said...

I'm with you on the too hot. The house isn't air conditioned but the church office is so I'm actually glad to go to work. Usually when the kids are out of school and the wether is nice I'd rather stay home.

For weeks now the high temperature has been over 30 (that's 86 below the border) and here around the great lakes it's always humid too.