To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

It hit 105 today--one degree shy of matching the all-time record set in 1952. Tomorrow is variously forecast to be anywhere from 106 to 109. (For you Celsius types, that's 41-43.) Aiyiyiyi.

On the other hand, at least the hills don't look like this. Colorado is apparently turning into Mordor. Although Rutherford County gave it the old college try with a grass fire that burned up 25 acres, including a barn and someone's soybean crop. :( There's also a grass fire up in Kentucky near the state line, the smoke from which has closed down almost ten miles of a not-quite-interstate-but-still-major highway.

And this is the current drought map for the state. Nashville is in D1, moderate drought, but basically the rain gods have forsaken us and there's no rain in sight, so we're liable to hit D3 or D4 in a couple more weeks.

/weather geeking

I walk the dog in the evenings now, often just around sunset. This neighborhood has zillions of big, old trees, and so no matter the season or weather, it's always pretty, but in the early summer it's especially stunning. The western sky burns orange, and when the clouds are big and puffy, with crepuscular rays bursting over them, it really is like God or something is right there, holding court just beyond the fluffy curtain. The honeysuckle is still smelling up the neighborhood, and pretty much everyone does some mild landscaping in their front lawns, so there are always new flowers to see. The local wildlife also gets more active at dusk, from birds to squirrels to the truly amazing amount of rabbits we have this year. I usually walk a mile, maybe a mile and a quarter depending on the route I take, and recently I saw five rabbits in one evening. Just tonight, one of my neighbors had four rabbits in their not-huge front yard. Four! I didn't even know Eastern Cottontails were that social!

Speaking of pretties, I put the flowers-and-glassware ones I promised earlier today up in their own album on my website, because there were almost 40 and the prospect of hand-coding that was too daunting for me. Basically, it is a celebration of hydrangeas, glass, and the color blue.

Studies in blue.

Captions are at the bottom, so you may have to scroll.

Argh, my website is down again. Definitely moving a different hosting company when this year's account runs out.

However, Photobucket will do in a pinch, for adorable dog photos must be shared!

( Fiona with her toy. )

( Flowers and a bird. )

You knew this was coming.

( Just a few, though. And a video! )

Life is better with a dog. So today, after they spayed her, Fiona came home from the pound.

( Pictures of SQUEE. )

The folks at the pound thought she was about two years old. She was a stray someone brought in, and from her thinness, seems to have been on her own for a while. However, I think she was also someone's pet, because she hopped on the couch the moment she walked in the door, and has basically stuck to me like glue ever since. It seems like she might be house-trained, too, although we'll find out for sure over the next few days, I suppose.

"Fiona" is a provisional name. We wanted something vaguely Irish because she looks like a very tiny Irish Wolfhound, but we may settle on something else. Suggestions entertained.

:D :D :D

Dear Mockingbird,

Your song is so pretty! I see you have amassed many variations. I hope it attracts a very nice girl mocker, and the two of you go off to have fabulous bird sex and produce many babies who will take up your mantel of scarfing holly berries and terrorizing the neighborhood cats.

However. Do you think you could cool it after, I dunno, midnight? Because as lovely as it is, your twittering right outside my window becomes really obnoxious by three in the morning.

Sleepily yours,
Me

So. That was fun.

We only got giant hail here (my car seems okay, but it was raining when I checked and hard to tell), and apparently about 8,000 people lost power on the other side of town, but beyond some downed trees, lost shingles, and the odd broken window in the surrounding counties, Nashville emerged unscathed, unlike the poor residents of, from what the news tells me, five or six different towns that were completely flattened, plus odd patches of other towns and cities that were wiped away. And apparently this storm is still raging away over to the east, so good luck to anyone over there. Maybe it'll crash into the mountains and get over itself.

Biennial(ish) bowling with high school friends today! I got somewhere in the 80s for the first game, and then a 130 for the second, which might be a record for me. (Not hard, considering that except for the times we went for gym in high school--yeah, I went to nerd school, we did stuff like that for PE--I think I've been bowling maybe five or six times in my life.) Apparently there's going to be a high school reunion this summer, which I had not heard about because I hate Facebook and never log in to it. I am...fairly disturbed that it's been ten years since we graduated.

In other news, Yuletide happened! I don't usually do recs, but I recently rediscovered the "reading history" page on the AO3, so I'm doing them this year. Four stories I enjoyed reading:

My Master's Secret Mission - OMG SO FUNNY. My favorite Yuletide story of the year. I'll just give you the snippet of the summary that hooked me right off: "I am THE LUCKIEST GENIE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD! My Master has given me a DIARY!"

eff em ell, and other quotes from the official biography - Post-canon fic for the Shakespeare Retold version of The Taming of the Shrew (which I loved so much), from Tim's POV. (The poor sod still works for Katharine and has to deal with her and her family.) Everyone's true to form, and it's hilarious.

Scenes from a Cultural Exchange, or The Muppets Take New Burbage - Exactly what it sounds like. Exactly as awesome as it sounds.

Leavening - Very much like a lost episode of Ballykissangel. Peter- and Assumpta-centric.

1. I discovered a really good gyros place near my house. OM NOM NOM. They use ranch dressing instead of tzatziki, which never occurred to me but is delicious. Also the meat is really good, and they use incredibly tasty tabouleh as one of the toppings.

2. I went to Radnor Lake today and saw a deer! Sadly, I only got one halfway-decent shot of her, and the rest were of deer butt. Nevertheless, wildlife! I took about 120 pictures total and haven't managed to sort through them yet, but once I do, I'll put them up.

3. Burn Notice returns tomorrow night! I had sort of forgotten they even had a winter season, so this is an unexpected bonus for my week!

4. Apparently Jamie Bamber is going to be guest-starring on Body of Proof as a love interest for Megan starting late this month. I was never a fan of Lee (as I recall, he was the one character I consistently thought BSG could do without), but it was more the character's fault than Bamber's, so this should be...interesting. Also, quid pro quo since Dana Delany guest-starred in an S2 episode of BSG? Anyway, please please please, show, have Ethan make a reference to his amazing resemblance to a certain Viper pilot, or some kind of joke that plays on his BSG background!

5. Fringe Friday in two days! Things I am hoping this episode addresses or includes: ( under a cut; all speculation, no spoilers )

Relatedly, news from the scheduling front: counting this week, only three episodes are going to air this month before the EIGHT-WEEK HIATUS ARGH until January 13th. This means episode eight, the original fall finale, won't air until January. On the one hand, it's certainly going to be a cliffhanger, and this way, we'll only have to wait a week for the resolution instead of eight or nine weeks. I might have a shred of sanity left by the end of the hiatus. On the other hand, from the title alone I am expecting big things from that episode, and now I will just have two more months to build up unreasonable expectations. (Granted, only once or twice has Fringe failed to live up to my expectations, but still.)

Things that should not be: a spider in my bed. The little bastards can have the outdoors, and honestly I've realized that with the trap door to the attic in my bedroom keeping them out of the room itself is a lost cause, but they have no business being in my bed.

(This wasn't even that little; it was a bit bigger than my fingertip. My spider identification skills do at least include the black widow and brown recluse, neither of which this was, so while I'm reasonably certain it wasn't poisonous, that still does not give it the right to be in my bed. I squished it with extreme prejudice.)

*

Publicity photos are out for the first S2 episode of Body of Proof. (Well, technically it's a leftover from season one, but whatever.) Looks like Bud and Sam are going to have an opportunity to be awesome.