Coffee Break?

This is week #69 on Top Sites Tuesday and it’s hot outside! So today’s question is all about staying cool on these hot Summer days.

How am I staying cool this summer?  Well...greetings, y'all...from Nome, Alaska, enjoying a balmy average 52F, roaring fire and a piping hot mug of hot chocolate...with marshmallows.  Had a quick skim in the canoe about mid-morning, did a little fishing, chopped a cord of wood by lunchtime.  Just turned on the electric blanket for a cozy night's sleep.

I WISH!

I wish I could say I've moved to Nome, AK but...no such luck, one can only dream!  As usual I've gone from one who rarely moans and complains (unless it's summer time) to a shorter, crabbier version of Maxine.  Remember February?  When we had two feet of snow, ice, bitter cold?  Aaaahhh, happy days...and I think it's no exaggeration to state that I do believe even those who say "The hotter the summer the better" are eating their words...along with gallons of ice-cream and iced drinks.  I never thought I'd hear KW admit it was just too hot to do anything but...well, maybe it's an age thing catching up with her (and serves her right..lol!)  So...what AM I doing to stay cool?  Ummm...self-imprisonment is helping.  I'm just not going outdoors.  Twice a week...that's it.  Wednesday afternoons I do my volunteer stint at the hospital and am currently cheating.  Those of us who work or volunteer there have parking restrictions and limitations which, under normal circumstances, make sense and don't bother me a bit.  Usually I park in the 'north forty'...a borrowed area of ground a little distant from the hospital...and enjoy the walk up hill and down dale.  I did it in the winter at -20F, raging winds, biblical rains...no problem.  Now, I cheat and use the valet service...it's either that or I call out but, at the same time, the weight of my guilt just seems to increase the the insufferable heat. My other day out amounts to two hours grocery shopping, banking or whatever must be done as quickly as possible (and as near to home) then back where I belong...sitting in front of the air-conditioner nekkid as a jay bird.  Okay...not quite but at least behind locked doors I CAN be if I so choose.  The dogs don't care.

It just occurred to me you all may be wondering who I am or at least where I've been since blogs have been non-existent for a couple of months.  Blame she who installed a cat door in our office window.  Oh...it has worked well for the several years it's been there but I don't recall a summer of this heat which started as early as this one did.  The inner window had to be removed, cat door in the outer.  The office is on the side of the house which gets full sun from around noon until setting time and this room has become a sweat-box.  Short of dragging the freezer in here behind my desk chair..and sitting in front of it's open door...there is no relief.  A/C is defeated and running fans doesn't work...so many papers blowing around it's akin to a snow storm (and I wish it was...I could happily be in here, then).  Thing is, I don't even like a/c but in these temps there is no choice but to be running it full bore.  I was so thrilled last month...June 23rd. to be precise...when I realised we had just passed the longest day and were now on the downward slide.  Yaaaayyyyy!  My calendar is already turned to October...sure, we can still have warm days but surely not like this...and I gaze longingly at the gold and russet leaves of the Autumn month's depiction.  There is an upside...surprisingly I am enjoying the enforced seperation from my pc and the time I can now spend reading, watching movies.  Very gratifying to remember I DVR'd a half-dozen or so Christmas movies  I now watch with more relish than I did with real snow all around me.  And thank God for slate floors!  Wonderful places to take the odd nap...so much so that were it not that KW would immediately "get started on it now", I'm thinking we should take up the living room carpeting and tile there, also.  Look, the dining room floor gets pretty crowded these days with five dogs, five cats and me all vying for the cool spots.  I'd suggest it now (before I forget) but the very thought of getting dragged into her projects in this heat petrifies me.  Buddy, the Pug...he looks very fetching (but not necessarily happy) walking around draped in his wet dishcloth.  Pugs have no tolerance for heat and, seriously, we do have to be very careful for him so there comes a point in each day when said cloth is soaked, wrung out and flung across his back.  Like me, he is willing to put up with whatever needs doing just to live another day.  This is madness...Friday, as I was pushing five dogs out the back door I had a flashback to Guam...the day I stepped off the plane into this tropical paradise, feeling as though I had walked into a pizza brick-oven...when the wall of  stifling 100+ wall of dank hit me.  It was a jungle out there and no wonder the pups were climbing over each other backwards to stay indoors. 

Bedtime is a relief.  I've never been one to need much sleep but sliding between those cool cotton sheets is the highpoint of my day....for about five minutes.  And yet...funny thing is a mug of steaming hot coffee or tea  still my preferred beverage and I cannot imagine enjoying anything but my usual hot shower.  As long as I can step out to an air conditioned room.   Frightening to think this is only us half way through July and having had weeks of  "dog-days of August" temps.  I really do hope all of you have a better handle on the "joys of summer" than I do.  It can't get any worse though...can it?  

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Tags: cat door, Delaware, Dog Days of Summer, keeping cool, Nome Alaska, Summer Heatwave, tile floors

As always, on a Sunday morning I set aside my undisturbed 90 minutes to watch "CBS Sunday Morning"...best show of the week, always interesting, always informative, a true delight and a great way to rise to the day.  Aside from the segment on the Taj Mahal (wondrous structure that it is) this morning's favourite was the casket segment. 

 http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6511594n&tag=mncol;lst;1

I enjoyed the segment but the logic remains beyond me.  Checking prices, anywhere from around $1000 to $5000 although there is one site on the web does them saving several thousands on each.  Of course, I didn't check into the shipping charges.  But, really...what is the purpose of the metal..and usually...more expensive box?  Sure, googling around you'll find that metal, depending upon it's grade, will last much longer and for varying lengths of time even if the remains inside will still deteriorate.  It may keep them intact a little longer but I have to wonder...worth $5000 longer?  The ordinary wood caskets are generally chipboard with a wood veneer, metallic-looking plastic handles and plate...certainly less costly but they've been found to have rotted through four-five weeks after the burial.   My father-in-law reposed  in a...ummm...beautiful gun-metal steel casket then interred in a lead-lined lair (grave) and I had to wonder why?  I mean I know the premise was for minimal decay, possibly no thievery (???), no desecration.  The desecration aspect I could perhaps comprehend...unpleasant thought at best...but no matter how, where or in what we are buried decay happens.  Then again, my own belief is it doesn't happen to 'me' but to the housing, vehicle I used while still living, breathing.  The essence that was 'me' moved on the moment of my last exhalation.  But I suppose, for those who believe in resurrection a traditional burial in as safe and secure a housing would be necessary.   The programme did show eco caskets of recycled cardboard/paper etc., bamboo is also biodegradable so I guess, less expensive.  I'd lean towards those if burial was in my future   but I'm opting for cremation.  Least expensive for those I leave behind, cleaner, leaves no grave anyone might feel obligated to visit and tend (why?  I'm not there...and I'd rather be remembered with joy than with guilt or a sense of duty!) and, other than what is needed to contain me, no fancy casket necessary.  I don't want to be put on display....if I'm to be remembered doing so the last time each rememberer saw and spoke with me will do just fine.  There are a number of reasons I don't want to be put on display, the primary being I've never worn make-up in my life, opting for the natural look and I would cringe at the idea of mourners walking by, telling each other how "wonderful" or "natural" I looked, all dolled up and going nowhere. Worse would be "how well she looks"...I'm dead!  How can I look "well"??  Nope...lay me in a cardboard box, take me to the flames and return the ashes to my loved one to be disposed of however I have dictated.  These days, there are many options.  There's the dresser drawer in the guest room...already holding six boxes of cremains and I sure wouldn't mind waiting with them for KW's.  All that would take, then, is for some loving soul to put them altogether and scatter them...probably at sea.  Had I been a lover of sci-fi, space history or such, a lipstick-size vial of ashes could be sent into low-orbit space....at quite a cost I might add.  Nor do they remain there forever but only a few years before re-entry.  But, get this...I could have my ashes made into synthetic diamond jewellry!  Really...KW could end up wearing me round her neck, in her ear, on a finger or a naval piercing!  Lends a whole 'nuther meaning to "attached at the hip".  Oh, sure...that's a little bizarre, creepy, and yet.....   Just think of the future...no longer would it be "who gets grandma's ring, then..."  but "Okay, who gets grandma?"   You can bet grandma then will be worth more to anyone in the family than she was when she needed her dentures cleaned or depends changed...they'll all want her now.  I was going to suggest that having her made into jewellry probably wouldn't be a good idea in that instance but wait....can't take too many cremains to make a little ring so perhaps enough could be made that everyone might have one and no fighting.

I will say, though, the Ghanian caskets portrayed on "Sunday Morning" were, by far, the most colourful, most interesting and most fun.  Perhaps that is what we really need to change our mind-set of death being a taboo subject to being part of life and living.  Of course we mourn the loss of someone dear to us...even when it is not death we mourn after a fashion when we are seperate from a loved one, whichever manner we are without that person in our daily lives.  More to the point we should celebrate that they were ever such a part of our lives and we theirs....all we have learned and enjoyed through our interactions with him/her, what we would have missed had they never been.    

Tags: Caskets, CBS Sunday Morning, Celebration of Life, Cremation, Cremation Jewellry

It was going to be "Raccoons:  Continuing Saga" with another possibility of "Forget the Gun...Where's The Camera" but given that one title referred to our nocturnal visitor while the other my recalcitrant partner "Wild America" took care of both.  Got her a new, fancy camera for Christmas...takes great pics and, admittedly, not without the persistence and patience of the photographer.  Only thing is a somewhat monster has been created...we can't have dinner without a chair being tossed backwards, camera grabbed and "Woww...look at that!" or coffee left to get cold while "Wait!  Something's out there!" and off she goes, the wildlife paparazzi.  Now, between her and two...yep, two for she bought another one a few weeks ago...birdcams we have 3,126 photos of a squirrel.  Okay...there are some bird pics in the mix but the squirrel should be appearing on a PETA magazine cover any day.  Of course it's the same squirrel!  ( I can tell by the cheery wink and wave he/she directs at the lens umpteen times a day...).  In fact, forget PETA...I can see Biggest Loser coming after her/him for their show...and PETA for us....squirrel abuse.   Used to swing and fling himself through the trees, cavort on the suet feeder and run hither and yon all over the deck rails.  The other day he was barely able to waddle before he sprawled over the table feeder and ate like it was his last.  In recent days...well, nights around ten, KW gets up and squats at the storm door...itching for the best picture of a solitary raccoon under one of our deck chairs, nosing around but with the storm glass in the way, not perfect.  Some nights she has gone into the bedroom and destroyed my drapes.  Oh, yes...pulled the sheers aside to an ugly clump, mussed up my perfect folds on the suede drapes and left flashlight, camera bag, screen on the floor for me to trip over in the dark of night.  It was only a matter of time and tonight was it:  "Ummm...do you think we'd get many bugs in the bedroom if I took the window out?"  I nearly lost my eyebrows up in my hairline..."ExCuse me???  The WINDOW???".  "Well...yeah.  I was just thinking...."  Nope, my signal wasn't "talk to the hand" it was "stop right there!!"  Naahhh...bugs?  What's a couple hundred mosquitoes on a warm, humid night and my legs and arms there for the tasting?  She squinted, giving that some thought..."Hmmm...mosquitoes, eh?....."  Since that didn't seem to be convincing enough for her I pulled out the big guns..."Yeah...and June bugs!"   
"JUNE bugs??  Eeeeuuuwwww...never mind!"  Hahaha...she hates June bugs and for those of you who don't know what they are (as I didn't, before coming to the States) they are big, fat, reddish-brown, crunchy night flyers that make a very loud, very distracting "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" noise.  They are harmless except for their looks and the fact that they will dive-bomb you, not caring if they tangle up in your hair.  I don't like them...SHE hates them.  I won...tah-dah!  No window out of the bedroom!

But I did make a compromise.  "Listen...how about this;  next Wednesday after the garbage men have been, you come home early and scrub out the wheelie-bin with disinfectant then, late that night before we put any trash in there, you get in and hide...with the camera and wait for Rocky..."  Mind you, I didn't think it a bad suggestion even though partly done TIC.  Oh, no...I could see the cogs kicking into high gear and the unmistakeable glint in her eye.  I mean...okay...I wouldn't do it (not without scuba gear)!   And maybe I could wrap her...or the inside of the bin...in big bin liners...yeah!  Two for her, taped together...I'll cut eye-holes out, tie plastic grocery bags round her arms with only the camera showing....   The bin sits among some trees and about 2' behind it is a camouflage covered table under which sits the infamous kitty butler...this is where the raccoons come for play, food and general shenanigans.  It's perfect!! 

Note to self:  get batteries in your own camera, possibly the Flip video.  Take window out of the bedroom and get this on film!!  "Wild America...KW or Raccoon?  You be the judge"  I'll let you know how it works for her.

Tags: photography, raccoons, Squirrels, Wild America, Wildlife