Summer is here

It got to 103 today. I guess summer is here, though it doesn't officially arrive until Sunday. We've had a lovely month or so of 80s every day, but it had to end sometime. The boos and I took our walk a little late today, it was almost 8:30am when we left the house, and when we reached the digital sign on China Lake Boulevard it read 87 degrees at 8:57. I shouldn't be out with the babies when it's that hot. What am I going to do when it gets even hotter?

We've started going for walks after dinner, the whole family (but not the kitties). I think we are trying to recreate our family walks in Boulder, with Martin Park 3 blocks from our house and Cafe Sole maybe half a mile beyond that. Unfortunately there's no park or coffeehouse near our house in Ridgecrest, so we mostly walk to Albertson's, where Rocket Boy buys a bottle of iced tea. Well, it's something.

Tonight we were walking down our street and I saw a dog up ahead, a pit bull, looking at us. Then it turned the corner and ran away. When we got to the next cross street, I could see it still running. It didn't seem to belong anywhere. I hoped it hadn't gone mad in the heat (does that really happen?). We continued on and then we saw another dog just trotting along toward us. This was a big fluffy dog, maybe part husky. But it had people trying to catch it, calling to it, running after it. It ignored them until it reached us and gave us all a good sniff. Then it went home with its owner, a middle-aged man with a ponytail, wearing a shirt that said something like "Gitmo -- America's paradise" and a picture of a swimming pool. I was puzzling over the shirt, trying to understand the point, and then I noticed a bumper sticker on the man's car that said "Obummer." Oh. Sigh.

We continued on our walk and we passed a house that had cars covered with bumper stickers: "Vote Yes on Prop. 8" "Pray to End Abortion" "Every Fourth Child is Murdered by Choice." Sigh.

For some reason this all made me think of my favorite bumper sticker from back home. It was "Nederland, Colorado: A dog in every Subaru." No politics, really, just dogs and Subarus in my sweet Rocky Mountain paradise that I miss so very much.

The wind kicked up and we walked home with difficulty. I get so tired of that wind. At least the temperature had dropped (it was in the 80s).

They say it cools down by late October.