Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu!

And don't forget the sunscreen.

It's assumed by newcomers to the Pacific Northwest that summer begins with Memorial Day weekend (last weekend of May, for my non-US readers). In fact, summer begins after July 4th. The vagaries of the weather shifts have settled and the hot air from the interior of the country has a chance to come in and bake us for a few days until the Pacific air forces it back over to the other side of the mountains. Either way it's not my favorite time of the year. While I equate it to lazy days of reading mountains of books, eating fresh fruit, and sleeping in, I also equate it to sunburns, the stench of lighter fluid from barbecues, and sweaty evenings trying to catch some cool air and being unable to sleep until 1 am. Summer and I are not friends. We came to a mutual agreement when I invested in central air conditioning a few years ago when I upgraded the furnace from a converted sawdust burner to a tidy little natural gas box. At least I can sleep at night and am not a grump by the end of August.

The Fourth was fairly quiet in the neighborhood. Either that or I was so soundly asleep that I didn't hear anything. The city put the word out that fire marshals were riding with police on the Fourth to enforce the fireworks laws. Washington's fireworks laws are not as stringent as those in Oregon's, so folks commonly cross over to Washington to pick up fireworks that they can't get in Oregon. This year law enforcement decided to put more muscle into the laws. I don't know how well it did in other areas but in my neighborhood it did make a difference. The cats as a general rule do pretty well on the Fourth, but last year two of them were under the bed. This year all three were sleeping calmly, though Buster was quite put out that I kept him in the house for a good part of the day.

Whispers

I got word that something good is going to happen to me at the office. I can't say yet what it is because it isn't official yet, but it was enough to leave me a little stunned. I needed something to help me recover so I got this.

Schafer Yarn's "Anne", their fingering weight yarn. I wanted something with softer colors for the swatches I'm going to be doing for some pattern write-ups and I had a birthday discount card from Yarn Garden.

I think I'm okay to drive now.