daidoji_gisei: (Shall bones live?)
The big thing happening right now is the heat. Well, and the drought. We haven't had rain for four weeks now, which is never a good thing and is especially bad when your area is entering its second week of 100+F daily high temperatures.

As I do not use air conditioning, this has been somewhat of a challenge. I find it relatively easy to keep comfortable when doing sedentary things (reading, writing, crocheting), but I have developed a severe disinclination to doing dishes. For some odd reason, standing around with my arms up to my elbows in hot water sounds unpleasant. I've taken to getting up an extra hour early in the morning so that I can get some stuff done. This kind of messes up my sleep schedule, so I am trying to compensate by taking a long nap when I get home from work in the afternoon. I don't think this is a long-term solution, but looking at the NWS website I see we have the high temps for at least another week. *sigh*

The heat has had the odd effect of making me feel better for not having planted as much summer-stuff in the garden as I had originally wanted: Keeping everything watered would have been very, very difficult. As it is I am trying to commit myself to saving the water from each and every clothes-washing load and using it to water the garden. As this requires carrying about 6 30# jugs of water down a flight of stairs and into the garden I'm not really happy about this. But what can you do?

Weirdest thing about the heat: I've been taking cool-water bathes in the evening to wash the sweat off and to cool down. When I get out of the tub and wander around the apartment the walls, when I touch them, are burning hot.
daidoji_gisei: "Because I'm worth it" (L'oreal)
A few weeks ago my friends Karin and Ami gifted me with a parasol. Not just any parasol: it was black with rows and rows of black lace ruffles and black roses: a parasol with style and presence. I was delighted--I'd given such things a casual look at Gencon but could never quite convince myself to buy myself one.

Today I got the chance to use it, because I was going to church (and thus wearing a nice dress) and it's hot out. I mean hoooooot. I mean all this weekend we've been having heat indexes in the 100+ F range. (That's 38+ for you metric folks.) I had gotten about half-way down my block when I became totally enamored of my parasol and started pondering buying another one in a non-black color to go with the non-black part of my wardrobe. It wasn't the stylishness of the thing, it was the discovery that a parasol is like a hat, only better. It's better because hats only shade your face, but a parasol shades your shoulders as well. Also, with a parasol you can still get a breeze through your hair, the lack of which is the only real downside of summer hats.

On my way home after church I stopped at the local Walgreens to refill my steroid prescription. While I was waiting in line an older woman leaned over to say, "I saw you in church today and your outfit looked so pretty!" I grinned and thanked her. Walking home after that I passed an apartment building where two women were hanging out on a shady balcony. "I bet you are glad for that umbrella now!" one of them shouted down to me. I half-turned and yelled a happy "YEAH!" back to her. Since it was now past noon I was not simply being agreeable: having portable shade was really, really nice.

I'm now keeping my eyes out for nice umbrellas suitable for being upgraded (Exalted?) into parasolhood. I can't make anything as nice as the one I was given (I do not have the focus required to sew on that much lace ruffle, no matter how much I like lace ruffle), but I think I can fancy it up enough that it is clearly a Parasol, and not an Umbrella. Or maybe I'll just give up and buy one at Gencon. Regardless, the one I have is going to be getting serious work this summer.

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December 2021

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