Books: if you aren't familiar with Dennis Lehane's books and if you are a fan of the private investigator genre, you should check him out. (The library is your friend here, no need to buy them.) Well-written, fast, snappy dialogue. Not great literature but fleshed-out stories, a couple of well-defined characters, mostly set in Boston, smart and always engaging. I am reading other books as well, but not finding anything that I totally enamoured of, but if I do, you will read about it. (Suggestions welcome.) The library here, while seemingly large, doesn't buy a lot of new books unless they are widely reviewed. However, while browsing the stacks of fiction I noticed that many of the books have a label on their spine reading "Christian Fiction." Hmm, I must check out one of those. NOT.
Produce: today I finally found a good tomato; it seems the heat here has ruined most of the crop. They look good, all red and plump, but are hard and unripe inside. Today's find was a yellow tomato that was actually ripe and sweet. Sadly, the 'farmers market' here is more more like a farmers roadside stand. And not even that. Summer squash abounds, along with green string beans, melons, onions, sometimes berries and the best peaches I have eaten, grown in Texas. Not much more, unless you want one of the Fried Pies offered by the Mormons. I still long for a juicy, intense heirloom tomato that you can slice thick, put on a slice of good bread with a smear of mayo, some salt, and eat it standing over the sink as it leaks its amazing juice into the bread and all over your fingers. Haven't found that yet. Will continue to look.
TV: just finished watching the first season of the FX show "Justified" with Timothy Oliphant. With him, nothing more needs to be said except "hot" and "cute." Very much so. The series is in its third season, I think, but I missed most of it so am catching up with Netflix. Takes place in Kentucky, he is a US Marshall (which is different than being a cop or a FBI guy) and the sleaziness of the south truly comes out. Now, I'm not saying the south is sleazy, but there is that gritty, unsavory element and the show does not pretty it up. Lots of guns, some shooting and some blood, but it has that lazy, hot, southern quality about it that I like. It's sort of twisted at times, again another plus. And hey, you just can't stop looking at Oliphant. (There are hot chicks in it too, just so you know and if you like that sort of thing. And really, who doesn't?)
Heat: I hate to run on and on about the heat but here's one thing that you don't know until you live in it. It's fine to think that you go from AC in the house to AC in the car to AC in the market or movie theater or whatever. All that is fine. What you don't realize is that if you are out of your car for more than 30 minutes, it heats up inside to temperatures in the 140-150 degree range. That's really hot. You turn the AC on and it does nothing for about 10 minutes because everything in that car is hot, every surface, and it takes a long time for that cold (read cool) air to actually make a difference in a fire box like that. So by the time you get home you are sweating through your shirt because the car is so hot and the AC is struggling greatly to cool things down but is defeated by the elements.
Cold showers: because the air and the ground are so hot all the time (night-time low is around 80, and that's not til about 3:00 am) the water that comes out of the shower head is also almost hot. You get about one minute of cold water, probably the water circling through the pipes in the house, and then it goes tepid. This is so disappointing! Because I am out several times during the day, sometimes actually out in the hotness, sometimes coming back from the YMCA, always sweating, I need that cold shower more than once a day. Not having it makes me cranky. But at least it saves water siince I am in and out quickly, and since there is a major drought here, that is not a bad thing. But still......
YMCA: yes, I joined because they have a gym and because I am so bored. It gives my day another dimension, that of fostering Christian values. Oh, wait, that's really not what I meant, that's just what it says on the walls, which I read while working the weight machines. The other dimension for me is just getting to do something else other than read and talk to the dogs and nap. The local Y is about two miles from here and if I go around 1:00 it is fairly empty, so not too many people watch me as I go from Nautilus to Nautilus and puzzle over how to move the seat or the fulcrum and not too many people giggle at my lame attempts to pump iron. But hey, it's something to do and wasn't all that expensive. But please, don't imagine that I will come back to California all toned and buffed. We all know that ain't gonna happen. The best I am hoping for is that I come back a little more fit physically and sane and reasonably sober, and my almost daily short work-outs are a way to help that happen. And by "reasonably sober" I mean I haven't had to join AA yet. But sometimes it seems not out of the equation. (kidding. sort of.)
Dogs: just one word about them: smart. I often take them out around 2:00 in the afternoon (they get an hour long walk from 6:30 to 7:30 in the morning) for a little romp on the grassy knoll in back of us so they can pee and stretch their legs, which they don't care to do in the backyard. Yesterday they ran around for about 8 minutes and then parked themselves under a tree, in the shade, and wouldn't move. I had to put leashes on both of them and gently coax them to the car. They know it's too hot and they know when to stop. When we first get to the grassy area, they hop out of the car like kids on a field trip but they know when they are too hot and they stop moving. I admire their awareness of their own internal thermometer.
Drinks: I make a really good, tart, on-the-rocks margarita but tonight I am having a whiskey sour. I know, TMI.
That's all for now. Thanks for reading along and I am sure there will be more salient topics for the next blog. Or not.
Oddly, there are herons or cranes (whichever) in the little lake (pond) near us and in the Joe Pool Lake behind us.
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I have been craving Heirloom tomatoes all summer long. Sometimes I wonder if I should have stayed with Jai so I could have an unending supply of said tomatoes.
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