Reset Fifty, Day Seventeen

[rejectomorph]

I think I just woke up a couple of hours ago, and it was twilight, and it took a while to figure out if it was morning or evening. It's definitely daytime now, so it must have been morning. See, I haven't gotten entirely stupid in my old age. Just mostly. For example, Saturday morning my nephew brought the groceries I'd ordered and then went home, and it was only later I realized I'd bought fish and no lemon. Had I realized that when he was still here I'd have had him make a quick run to Trader Joe's, which is quite near (though no longer walking distance for me) and pick one up, but I don't want him making a four mile plus round trip just to bring me a lemon. I'll just have to figure some other way to prepare the fish.

Saturday, when the sky hazed up with smoke, I thought that it was coming from our local (sixty-mile long) fire, but it has since occurred to me that it is probably from fires burning south and west of here. The recent cooling trend indicates that what wind we're getting is from the southwest— what is called a delta breeze around here— and there are three decent sized fires in the Bay area, as well as the larger fire still burning (though now fully under control) near Clear Lake. The smoke from our fire is probably shadowing Oregon, Washington and Idaho now, and maybe even parts of Canada. But the lower temperatures and higher humidity have helped firefighters get the Park Fire a bit controlled (10% now.) A couple more cool days should help more, but after midweek another heat wave will arrive, and while not quite as bad as the last one it will give the fire some advantage and it could expand more rapidly again.

Meanwhile I've been enjoying the cooler nights. Last night's airing of the apartment got the temperature as low as 73, and it's still only 75 this late in the morning. Tonight and tomorrow won't be quite as cool as yesterday and last night, but still not up into total misery territory. But the odds that I will actually survive July are fairly good. If you'd asked me last week I wouldn't have held my breath (except to prevent my lungs from being scorched, of course.)



Sunday Verse

Meanwhile

Richard Siken

Driving, dogs barking, how you get used to it, how you make
                                       the new street yours.
Trees outside the window and a big band sound that makes you feel like
          everything's okay,
     a feeling that lasts for one song maybe,
                           the parentheses all clicking shut behind you.
                The way we move through time and space, or only time.
The way it's night for many miles, and then suddenly
                                                      it's not, it's breakfast
    and you're standing in the shower for over an hour,
                                   holding the bar of soap up to the light.
I will keep watch.  I will water the yard.
           Knot the tie and go to work.  Unknot the tie and go to sleep.
                                           I sleep.  I dream.  I make up things
      that I would never say.  I say them very quietly.
                                      The trees in wind, the streetlights on,
                 the click and flash of cigarettes
being smoked on the lawn, and just a little kiss before we say goodnight.
        It spins like a wheel inside you: green yellow, green blue,
                                                    green beautiful green.
     It's simple: it isn't over, it's just begun.  It's green.  It's still green.

(Sorry, the formatting on the poem is apparently going to render as a pig's breakfast, but I haven't the energy to try to fix it now.)

(Edit: Actualy it rendered fine here at Dreamwidth, but over at LJ it's a mess.)