Mom calls this kind of weather “instant summer”. When I pulled onto the parking lot at work today it was literally 100 degrees out according to my car thermometer. Up until last week, it had mostly been in the 70’s, and some nights were still downright cold. In fact, when my father-in-law came up, he brought me some jalapeno pepper plants, but he said, that they were small because the nights had been too cold for them. Not so today!

Anyway, we are running the central air conditioning in the new house. I hate to say it but we’re running it as much for the sake of the dog as anyone else. He’s the personification of misery in the heat – a huge fur bearing animal with a big old tongue just lolling out in front of him as he lays sprawled out on the kitchen floor. The parakeets didn’t mind though. In fact, the warmer it got, the chirpier they were, and they were so active hopping around on their play gym that the whole thing fell apart, sending Dagwood on an unexpected glide onto the kitchen floor. The dog was too hot to even look up and see what it was all about.

Yesterday we, apparently along with everyone else in the County, went to local garden centers to buy some plants to spruce up the landscape around the house. It was indeed a jungle out there, as we struggled in long lines balancing great pink “elephant ear” plants for the shade, herbs for the herb garden, and geraniums just for the hell of it. We also got a hook for the bird feeder and hung it up.

Upon further reflection, that may not have been the smartest thing we’ve ever done, because we hung it on the same side of the house as the bedrooms. At about 5:00 a.m. this morning it was discovered by what must be the loudest species of sparrow on the east coast and jubilantly reported to every other bird in a five mile radius at the tops of their little bird lungs. That woke up the pair-a-tweeters, who decided to put their two cents in, in spite of their cage cover still being on.

They’re usually very good about “roosting” until their cage cover comes off, unless, of course, we way oversleep and it’s half way through the morning. Also, it’s not much of a cage cover. It’s actually a beach blanket – so I feel they get extra credit for being smart birds. Still you can’t blame them for saying something. And besides, it was probably parakeet for “what the hell is all that noise? Don’t you know these hominids don’t go to bed around here til one in the morning?”

Still, it could have been worse. I could have been asleep at that time. The reason why I wasn’t was because Winston, who definitely prefers the cool hardwood floor to his dog bed in the heat, was snoring loudly enough to shake the lamp on the bedside table. I wonder if they make memory foam pillows for dogs?

We were both excited to see that our composting efforts have paid off – we had excellent compost with which to enrich the sandy soil near the patio. I guess this is what middle age is all about – getting excited because your compost turned out well. Still, given our track record, I think at this point we’re excited to see anything turn out well.

While we were doing the landscaping, I noticed that one of the pine trees out front is probably really well and truly dead. My brother first noticed it, and mentioned it to my father. Dad is red / green color blind, so he is really reliant on other people to mention stuff like that to him. Then I looked over the roof line and noticed that the whole tree is brown all the way to the top. We aren’t talking about a little pine bush, but a towering pine, which has probably been there since before the house was built.

I told Dad, it isn’t like anything is blowing off of it. It doesn’t seem to be in any danger of coming down all at once, but it is awfully close to the house. When I got to work, I called The Hub to remind him about an idiosyncrasy with the air conditioning. He told me that the lawn tractor had stopped working, and I heard my brother call out from the background “I broke it!”

“Oh, Demolition Man is there?”

“He didn’t break it.” The Hub assured me then went on, kidding, “I think your Dad sent him down to spy on me and make sure I really was cutting the grass”

“He did not!” my brother protested from behind him, “He sent me down here to spy on my sister to make sure the pine tree isn’t really half way onto the roof. I’ve never been so glad to see The Hub in my life! I was afraid I was going to have to climb it and start cutting it down!”

Well, good luck to both of them, I thought. Besides Dad, I’m the only other person in the family who isn’t afraid of heights, but I’m in no shape to climb a tree with a chain saw. I know that I have the tendency to minimize problems, but I really would have said so if the tree was falling over!

“What’s wrong with the lawn tractor?” I asked.

“Nothing simple. It’s not just a belt or something easy. So, the news here is that the tree’s dead, the tractor’s dead….”

“The dog is still living!” my brother said, encouragingly from the middle distance.

“Tell him to check on the parakeets.” I said, and hung up.

Just when I had myself really concerned about the situation, half listening the applicant with whom I was talking and half mentally trying to calculate the cost of tractor repairs, my co-worker handed me a note that said, “Hub called. Tractor fixed.”

No wonder nobody blinks at my clothing around here. What a hick I sound like! Still, thank God for the handy Hub who can fix anything.