Will it Ever be Cool Again?

It feels like it will never be cool again. The fog, which I love, seems to be sulking somewhere out to sea and our beautiful sea breeze along with it. Natural air conditioning is much nicer and less costly than artificial air, but for the last few days as the temperature soared to 97 degrees, I have wished that I could just flip a switch.

I console myself with the knowledge that in two weeks it will be fall--except that fall is our warmest season, at least at the beginning.

Of course, I love fall for the holidays and because it signals new beginnings, this year even more than usually because of the election.

Meanwhile, the tomatoes and basil that I posted about on Tuesday have continued to grow. The tomatoes seem to be growing exponentially. One day, I thought they seemed bigger in the evening than they were in the morning. Unlike corn in the Midwest that can be heard growing, they aren't making any sound, just quietly filling their grow bags. The roses are thriving too. As long as they have plenty of water, they seem to like the heat.

The days are getting shorter and we will be turning our attention to indoor activities. Soon it will be time for holiday preparations. Summer's heat will be a haze of the past. I will be glad for that, even as I dream of next summer's garden.

Grateful that the fog is supposedly on the way and that the weather will moderate, I hope to post more regularly next week.

Tuesday's Child

M is on her way to college today, halfway to her destination by now. I will miss her, I know. Air travel has been with us for so long that we take it for granted, standing in line and boarding our flights as easily as earlier generations took the train. My parents remembered the invention of air travel.

Tuesday's Child according to an old rhyme, is "full of grace". That refers to the person born on a Tuesday. I wish some of that grace to M as she travels to college today. No longer a girl and for the most part a young woman, she is still technically a teenager.

We require far more maturity from our young people today. It is assumed that they, or at least most of them, will go away from home for college. My mother lived "on campus" when she attended nursing school in the 1920's. She was in walking distance of going home for Sunday dinner with her family. My father attended college in his home town, living at home the whole time. Military service took him away from home during World War II. I lived at home until graduate school called me to leave and go relatively far away.

Today the cell phone keeps everyone connected through calls and text messaging. Email fills up our time--answering it and sending it. We are "connected" even though far away.

What will M and her generation be looking at as new and taken for granted technologies when they send their children off to college in about thirty years? When they look back, as I am at sixty?

This is an exciting time for M and some of her excitement has rubbed off on me and blessed me with shared enthusiasm. She is a blessing and gift in my life. I wish her joy in learning, Godspeed and Good Luck in all the new things that soon will be comfortable, no longer new aspects of her college life.

Just as the four years of her time in high school flew by the next four years will fly too. May they fly straight and fly true and her wings be strong, as I know her heart is.

Have fun, be safe, I miss you, dear M.

Sunflowers and Painting

I never much liked sunflowers really, because I never much liked Vincent Van Gogh's famous painting of them. Now they march along my fence outside my office window and they are gorgeous. They have made me love them. So it is never too late to change!

Parts of my house are being painted by kind young friends and the light glows on the new color, clean and bright and fresh. What a superb difference it makes!

Attendant to the painting is the necessity to clean, to move things out of the way to make way for the painting to progress. Fortunately, the city in which I live has "on call pick-ups" for extra trash and now the race is on. Just how much stuff can I get ready and who will push it out for me?

So my posts may be a bit spotty over the next few days, not a good beginning for a blog, but a renewal of my life nonetheless.