Perfect Days

You could argue that life in Indy is somewhat wanting lately. We've been slogging through day after day of 90 degree heat and not a drop of rain for nearly 3 weeks; the canal has dropped about a foot, and the mosquitos are many and vicious (even I'm getting bitten, and I usually don't fall prey to the little boogers much; right now I've probably got 10-20 bites in varying stages of itch.) I returned from my business trip to San Diego to a hot, stuffy, humid, and incredibly messy home. The window a/c unit is barely making a dent in the oppresive atmosphere around here, and it's too hot to cook or clean effectively.

So where's the upside? Well, the mornings are nice. I've been going for bike rides at 7 am, since it's too hot by the time 8 rolls around for me to bike to work right now. My house has a new resident--a female turtle named Harriet, who will be released back to the wild as soon as she's healed up from a mild trauma to her shell. It's fair time, and my dad and I spent a pleasant, if sweaty, couple of hours this morning at the fairgrounds. (While I'm grateful for the air conditioning that was added to the Home and Family Arts building in recent years, I must say that the culinary displays were far more entertaining when they fell victim to the heat and humidity after the first 3 days of the fair. Nothing has ever equalled the spectacle of the "Murder in the Cathedral" wedding cake, in which the red sugar windows of the church-shaped cake had melted and run down the inside of the structure and out the doors, pooling around the feet of the bride figurine like a gory testament to the value of pre-marital counselling. Later in the week, the icing under the groom's feet softened and he fell over into the red puddle, as if some jilted former lover of the bride had shown up and redefined the term "shotgun wedding.")

And I've been going out bat-watching in the evenings. The high mosquito population means that the little brown bats around here are very active and visible; I can go out and sit by the canal with a beer at twilight and watch as every few minutes, der fledermice flit past. I can't complain.