Temperature and Age are Only Numbers

For someone who’s just had her (really big number) birthday, I find my life moving faster than ever.  Good grief, doesn’t the universe know I’m retired?  Shouldn’t life be taking a slower pace?  It’s summer and I should be sitting on the porch of a country farmhouse, doing nothing other than drinking iced tea and ruminating.  I should have people sitting on the porch steps listening avidly to the stories I have to tell.  Hah, now there’s a fantasy.  My grown-up daughters have heard all of my stories many (many) times, but since they’re polite adult-type people, they pretend to listen to them without showing too much impatience before they gently say they “really have to go now”.  The grandchildren are another story – they just pretend they can’t hear me and run off.  I blame their absurdly healthy growth rates; they’re all taller than me now and they treat me like a favored pet instead of like the revered ancient sage that I am.

This summer I’m doing plenty of sitting around all right, and I’m certainly drinking gallons of iced tea, but that’s so I don’t die from the heat.  Lordy, it’s been hot here.  I really shouldn’t complain (although obviously I can and I will) since so far this area hasn’t hit triple digits.  You may have heard that the Pacific Northwest has the earned reputation of generally being soaking wet nearly all the time but you’d never know it if you were here now.  You might be interested to know that recently the municipal waterworks people have ever so gently suggested we citizens might want to think about being conservative with our water usage; you know, to just maybe give it some thought.

It’s not that we object to conserving natural resources, we just don’t understand there not being enough water at any given time and are bemused by the thought.  We shake our heads, mutter “I just don’t know” and tighten the faucets.  We keep our weather eyes out for potential rain clouds but there haven’t been any of those for weeks.  I used to make sure my car windows were up at night because – rain.  Now I make sure they’re up because – cats, racoons, squirrels, and other critters, all of whom are looking for somewhere to get out of the heat.

I have given the waterworks people’s request some thought, though.  I’m not worried about my own water usage.  I got rid of the above-ground swimming pool years ago (boy, was getting that ever a mistake) and I don’t water the lawn.  It’s all I can do to keep my one hanging plant alive and it’s looking pretty grim, poor thing.  I don’t go outside to the back yard until it’s just about dark and the heat waves have stopped coming off the pavement out front.  I like the way the mostly-dead grass crunches under my bare feet when I’m out there trying to find my little dog who has apparently taken off for the high country to live with the squirrels.  He doesn’t know they’re probably in my car.

He’ll come back when he gets thirsty, because apparently the water has also gone somewhere else to live.