Monthly Archives: May 2024

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Cool

I am still wearing sweaters to work.

It is high desert here. One morning it was really pretty cold when I walked Sol Duc in her harness. Really she walks me. Cats are like that. But I wished for mittens. The temperature was 38. The last few days the low is in the high 40s or low 50s. Two days ago it was 90 driving home from work.

The consequence is air conditioning. I do not have air conditioning on the Olympic Peninsula. My house is from 1930 and well designed to stay cool in the summer and we rarely hit 90 anyhow. Two summers ago my heat pump switched to cooling when we had one hot week, startling me. We did hit 100 one day in Port Townsend, but it still dropped thirty degrees at night because of the cool Salish Sea surrounding us. My patients would complain of the awful heat when we got to 80 degrees. It’s all relative, right?

Here in Grand Junction, we are just starting to heat up. The hottest time appears to be around 4 or 5 pm.

I was cold at work all day two days ago. I wore a linen shirt over another shirt and it was not enough. I went outside at lunch and heated up nicely in the sun. Yesterday I took a wool jacket with me. Air conditioning is very strange.

This morning it is 51 now and projected to reach 85. The high desert temperature change of 30 to 40 degrees is not that different from home, but the air conditioning is different.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ambivalent.

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Turtlehead

I don’t know if this monolith is named turtlehead, but it certainly looks like one to me.

I lost the trail early on and had to backtrack. There was a turn and then rock steps down that I missed. I was more careful after that. I like the way they mark the trails here: rocks and more rocks.

Here is the sign at the start.

Here is a future monolith near the top of the Corkscrew Trail.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: monolith.

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Sweet hike

I had a sweet hike on Sunday and met some of the locals.

I met bun and another small mammal who moved too fast for a photograph.

I haven’t quite sorted out my local lizards.

My! Some of the locals are SO colorful! I like the yellow feet!

And here is part of the trail that gets it the name Corkscrew.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: syrup.

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Dance!

I took this at the 2023 Swinging by the Sound Dance weekend in Port Townsend, Washington. This is the dance contest at the live band dance in the evening. The ballroom is at our American Legion Hall and has a fabulous floor to dance on. I was volunteering, since my lungs still were not up to that much dancing.

I do love to dance, though, and plan to for as long as I can. It helps with balance and reduces fall risk, too! My ex says it’s the most fun you can have with people standing up.

Jonathan Doyle led the band and they were and are fabulous.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ballroom.

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Wood grain

This is also from my hike on the Corkscrew Trail. I took a few photographs thinking of wood grain and weathering and like this the best. A tough and beautiful environment.

My mother’s birthday is May 31, so I always think of her around Memorial Day. I dreamed about her last night. She was rolling her eyes at me.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: grain.

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Travel light

Pormanteau
Passepartout
What do you know?
Where will you go?

Around the world in eighty days
1873 writer braves
a story to stun and amaze
journeying difficult yet craved

And do we now want it all?
Explore and travel still don’t pall
Yet changing weather makes cities fall
What change will make us heed earth’s call?

No Passepartout to pack my bags
Ethics queries about plane rides
A portmanteau inside my mind
Books are trips, to earth be kind

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: portmanteau.

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Peak

The pendulum swings far and back
Too many babies, what will we all eat?
Suddenly the switch, another panic attack
Now too few to support Wall Street
We wait in running cars in the drive-thru line
Wanting our turn to order fast food
It’s sunny through the smog and we feel just fine
The weather’s getting stranger, the world in a mood
Maybe we’ve peaked while driving around
Who will take care of us when we are old?
Peaked at the drive-thru, going down without a sound
An AI wonders at the price of gold
This might be as good as it gets
Maybe an AI will keep a few of us as pets

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: drive-thru.