Downstroke

Here in America we live and work mostly in daylight, and we dine, dance, and sleep after dark.  The Mediterraneans, with their siestas, know something about another way, maybe because of the heat. Those of us who work across multiple time zones, we navigate another way too.  So you unlink from regular, linear time a little, but at the same you are more wedded to the clock than ever in order to keep your bearing.

Backswing

When the temperature reaches 108F and it's going to be over 100F for the next five days, and there's been no rain for weeks, and humidity is in the teens... well, St. Louis, meet Palm Desert.  Which is pretty good weather for geezers with a/c, but it's hell on the hydrangeas.

Gets you thinking... what if it doesn't rain until September?  It means that all the water I bought, and will buy, over the last months and this summer will be for naught and we'll be losing trees, not just plants, and we'll be facing fires, not just the usual tornadoes and hailstorms.  It's so Biblical!

One sign that it could be the end of the world:  folks are giving away their tickets to the Cardinals games over the weekend...

Back on the Trail

Yeeks it's been another month.  I hope that's over.  I just... well, it's the Meriwether Dilemma.  How can you write a journal when you are busy fightin' bears?

Well, the bears are lumbering off this morning, looking for tastier fare.  And I'm thinking that the rest of my life begins - not today, too obvious - but July 1, 2012.  So I've got this little time for a windup.  Then in about a week I will take off, stop stewing, start doing, ensuring that when my funeral comes around they will be able say more than he was a nice guy.

This is the new Blogger format.  I will give it a try, although I thought the old one was cool, dry-Manhattan cool.  Maybe this will be a little warmer.  A Perfect Manhattan, this time.  Or not, and I will try to re-engineer back.

We seem to be embarking on a new political season and the chatter seems as banal and surface-coasting as ever.  And about money, money, money, or maybe that's me, maybe I'm getting to the sad state  where I think everyone but me is venal.

Just look and listen, and see if any candidate is talking about anything because it's virtuous, righteous, and not because it's politically savvy.  And way more important:  see if the reactions to what the candidates say are based on lack of virtue, or righteousness, as opposed to smart or stupid for the campaigner.

Not to say that process doesn't matter.  There is a trend taking place in California - the place that, contrarian that I am, I admire more and more - where they are trying to throttle back the rules so that the electorate no longer has to choose between extremists on either side.  Lots of ways to get there  - I'll do a really wonky piece about it before election day.

But now, I'm getting ready for July 1.  Where are those running shoes?