Current fascination

Sunday report

Current fascination:  locusts when they come out of their shells.  She's been finding dead ones and not yet dead ones, and the first couple that she ate gave her zoomies. I don't know if they have stingers or if they taste funny or what.  More recent encounters have not been zoomie generators, but she is fascinated by them.  She found one in the sandbox newly out of its shell, wings not yet fully dry and went nuts, digging around it and being surprised when it moved.

Ember and her mommy survived the heat of Saturday and Sunday.  Sunday did not get as hot as predicted.  96 or 97, not 102.  It was plenty hot enough for me, and that's for sure!

I filled the pink puppy pool with water and dumped a bunch of balls into the blue one, so she had a choice of play venues in our short outdoor adventures.

We took a walk early a.m., when it was a pleasant 74 degrees, and another at 9:45 or so when it was "only" 80 degrees F.  

Some wasps nesting on the deck railing bothered Ember in the early afternoon.  I don't know if she got stung, but she pulled in her horns and was quiet inside with me while I left messages with the pest control company that was supposed to have taken care of those yellow jackets!  Seriously, though, with all the yard work, and the open doors while things were being carted into and out of the house with the shower conversion work, and dirt being hauled in to grade the yard, whole new species of insect have been added to my yard and home!  I want to know how long before they come out again.

At about 1:30 p.m. Ember opted to enter her crate all on her own!  A nice safe place to nap, little one!  I left the door open, and I chilled in the family room watching TV.  She got up at 3 and came down to find me, and we went outside.  That's when the sandbox photo was taken.

Then Ember ate her meal and asked to go for a leash walk.  We went but I would not allow it to be very long.  We went three houses up the block and back.  

At the normal "time for mommy to cook her own supper" time, she's back into the "den" for the night.

Monday morning

Slept in a bit.  Didn't get the pup outdoors until 5:19 a.m.  She did her business.  I'm in shorts for the third day in a row, and only got the ankle nibbles once this morning, so far.  

We got walk #1 in with the temperature at 79 degrees at 6 a.m.!  Yikes.  But this is supposed to be the last day of excessive heat warning.  "Cooling" trend ahead.  Cooling as defined by Summer.

Puppy is in the crate for nap #1 and I'm about to head out for a grocery run.  A Chewy delivery is due today.  And life goes on in Emberville.

I suppose I ought to say a couple of words about the news, which I am turning off even more often than before.  

I will be interested to see if any of the violent rhetoric gets actually toned down.  I was dismayed by the reporting of accusations that "the left" caused this, radicalized that, etc., because let's be honest, we do not know what the motive was behind this awful act.  We have to stop characterizing those who disagree with us politically as being evil or worthy of being attacked violently!  I've heard it on both ends of the scale.  The worst images are being put before us day after day, hour after hour... painting one another as horrid people.  "The left" leaning media replays the worst of "the right" leaning media to stir up their own base.  And then everyone acts so surprised when a young person gets all het up and acts on what they have been exposed to!  Stop it already!

Life is good!  Let's support it by being kind one to another!  And Spark on!

Prisoner says...

 

Sigh.  Again!  Why is it when you know someone who lives in a town... or someone who works for a company... or someone who goes to a church... and something awful happens there (or near there), it's just ever so much worse?

Nashville.  Private Christian School.  Only a couple miles from the private Chirstian school my trainer's grandson, T, (age 5) attends.  We talked about the question his daughter in law asked his wife:  should we talk about it with T?

My own advice:  not unless he asks about it.  Otherwise, at age 5, if he's not aware, you don't need to turn his little world into a scarier place.

When I was six or seven, there was a killing spree going on in and near our state's capital city.  I was clueless.  We didn't have a TV.  My parents did not mention it.  I only found out years later about what happened back then.  The men in our little town, miles away, armed up and guarded.  As kids we might have noticed our dads behaving differently, but we were secure in our little worlds with our siblings, moms, and school days.  It did not last terribly long (a few days).  The guy was caught, tried, and executed.  For the longest time (decades) he was "the last prisoner executed" in our state.  The name Starkweather still has a black mark against it in these parts.

Life has changed considerably in the 60 plus years since then.  But the factor of local impact has not changed.  It's baked into our psyches... "it wouldn't happen here".  Until it does.

On a lighter note:  finding old TV shows I used to watch with my mom.  They are on Pluto, the free streaming service.  "Have Gun, Will Travel"... anybody remember that one?  Ancient "Avengers", the one with Steed before Emma Peele!  The ones with Honor Blackman!  Always something old.  And the memory is weak enough I have to watch them the way my dad used to re-watch old movies:  "to see if it turns out different this time"!

Wednesday morning I drove to the election commission office and turned in my ballot.  I don't know what kind of laws will be passed before the autumn elections, but we're still able to vote from home / by mail for the primary and city elections.  It's an interesting mayoral race, kind of a mix between referendum on how our current mayor handled the pandemic, and two other candidates one who is already spewing negative ads against the mayor, and the remaining one steering a more "middle" road, with a "not a politician, I'm a leader".  The top two, regardless of political affiliation will go on to the general.  So the trick is to pick the one most likely to result in the candidate you really want winning the general, right?  Narrow balance beam, there.

There have been some "reading list" issues, but seriously, I've been in the cave since last weekend... last posted on the gratitude list on Saturday.  

Hope all are hanging in there!

Despite whatever else is showing up, LIFE, itself, is good.  Spark on!