Spring and Other Things

Posting has been irregular lately.  I don't know whether this blog is just fading out of existence or I'm in a funk period and I'll be whipping out blog posts by the dozens in a few weeks.


The garden is actually looking pretty good given my neglect this year.  J went out and took a few pictures in the back yard.  I've asked him to do some of the front yard too, as he takes much better pictures than I do.  Not today, though, as it's very windy here today (gusts to 30 mph), and wind does not make for good pictures.

J will be retiring on or about July 24.  Then he'll run out his remaining vacation time until the end of the year. This means that (a) J will be around a lot more and will be able to make himself even more useful, and (b) we get to end what has been a 12-year stint in Sacramento, and return to Civilization. Return to shops with goods worth buying, neighborhood restaurants worth eating at, too many cultural activities for us to afford and, of course, a new right knee, so that I can enjoy all of these things.

I cried the first year we lived here.  It was 102 degrees in May.  Our car did not have air-conditioning.  (J believed that old hippies didn't get air-conditioning.  Now we're old hippies with A/C, as it's known here.)  There was nothing to do, nowhere to go.  Over the years we discovered that there weren't many places to go, and not much to do, but we got used to it.  J advanced his cooking skills, I (through judicious management) got two pickup truck-loads of plants into a six-by-ten patio space, and we discovered that modern houses have virtues.

The next few posts will look back at the bad and the awful.