Mood: green

It’s another day of rock and roll in Ashlandia, where musicians are elderly and the students are young. July 29, 2023. Sattiday. 66 F now, 89 F is expected to knock on the door before we take leave of the sun.

Same three fires burning around us — Bedrock, Flat, Golden — north, west, east. Wildfire smoke boiled in yesterday afternoon and stayed through most of the night. Tastes of chemicals and burnt wood. Sinuses back up in protest. Eyes get gritty. Little dribble of snot wants to leave the air holes. Fortunately, the house cooled down on its own. We avoid running the air to salve our conscious about a few different matters. Inside the house dropped from 82 to 72 overnight. I usually need to open doors and windows after dusk takes over to make that happen. Smoke’s cover pushed the evening temps down fast, which made the difference. It’s typically still about 80 F at ten. Yesterday, we had 78 before eight.

82 F, friends say. In the house? That’s too hot. Naw, we run a fan as we do things. Yes, we sweat, but, so? We also bath. Tasks are completed early, while it’s still cool. Doesn’t get warm in the house until after 3:30. Then it creeps into the eighties in the house, By then we’re ‘puting, cooking, reading, streaming. We run the kitchen vent fan when we cook so we don’t kick the room temp up too much.

Today, some dirty air scuds over the blue shine. Looking north, the sky changes from blue to smoky white.

Yesterday, my wife said, “Well, pangram was easy.” So I knew I was cursed. We each do Wordle and the Spelling Bee everyday on the NYTimes site. We call Spelling Bee ‘pangram’ because we’re really only interested in getting the pangram(s). Anytime that one of us expresses the conclusion that Wordle or pangram was easy, the other is immediately cursed. So it was with me. I pulled it up and stared at the letters, coming up with BEATZIP. Site said, not a word. Okay, how ’bout ZIPBEAT? Nope. I vowed to come back later.

Later came when I was closing the ‘puter for the day and realized, I never did the thing. I flipped to the page. Immediately saw BAPTIZE. WTH couldn’t I see that before? It was the curse.

The Neurons tossed “Tripping Billies” by The Dave Matthews Band into the morning mental music stream (trademark fantasized). As is often true, The Neurons don’t drop any clues about this song choice. I haven’t heard it in longer than I can remember. Don’t hear anything in the lyrics that I can connect to thinking or what I’m doing. Fun to blast it, though. Brought up old times.

Stay pos, be strong, and ride the way of thinking, emotions, and activities. I’ll be back tomorrow. Here’s the coffee, and away we go.

Cheers