Summer in Ridgecrest makes you think you've suddenly developed Type 2 diabetes -- you're so thirsty, you just want to drink and drink and drink. What a bad time for me to give up diet soda. But I had to, ya know, it's just not good for you, and I was up to 3 or 4 cans a day. So now we're trying to come up with alternatives. My current favorite ideas are very light lemonade (maybe 1/4 strength) and homemade mint iced tea. I'm going to do some experimenting.
The thing about summer is that you want to get up very early and do things before it gets hot, and you want to stay up very late and do things after it cools down, and so when exactly are you supposed to sleep? Why, in the afternoon, of course. Right after lunch is a good time for a nap. Except that the boo bears don't do that anymore. I say "Lunch is over, time for a nighty-night nap," and I go in my room and lie down on the bed, and they come in too, and throw things at me. They climb on top of me and hit me, they fall off the bed and scream, they turn my bedside light on and off, they bring in their toy school bus and make it play its stupid song ("Stop and go, stop and go, off to school, let's take it slow...") over and over, and when I get mad and yell at them (remember, all the childcare experts say you should never get mad and yell), they listen briefly, laugh, and do it all over again.
It is going to be a LONG summer.
But we want to enjoy the summer and do fun things. Friday night was the liberal salon thing again, and since we hadn't gone to that in months we decided we would definitely go -- except that we couldn't get a babysitter. (This is a constant problem.) But we really wanted to go, so what the heck, we brought the boos with us. We ate dinner before we went, so they wouldn't be cranky.
We drove out to the house around 7 pm. It was still really hot, in the 90s. The house was on one of the major streets in town, Las Flores, but west of Downs. I've learned that almost anything can happen once you go west of Downs. We parked on the street and hiked, literally, up to the house, which was already full of liberals eating potluck. We quickly noted that the house was full of breakable objects, so we zoomed out to the backyard. What a backyard! A huge swimming pool. A lawn. An enormous chicken/goose/pigeon coop. A big vegetable garden. A tennis court. A large undeveloped space. It was such an amazing property. Rocket Boy kept saying it didn't seem like we were in Ridgecrest, but really it did. For one thing it was 95 degrees at 7:15 pm. For another thing, the less developed parts of the yard were bare ground. It was still Ridgecrest. But a very amazing part of it.
We didn't have a very good time at the salon, because we had to chase the boo bears continuously. We didn't get to have a conversation with anyone, and more than one person looked a bit askance at us (I think you're not supposed to bring children). But what the heck, we got out for a while. I wish we had made a better impression on the host, though, because I would like to be invited back to swim in that pool.
Today we went to the swimming pool on base and that was pretty fun. They've finally opened up the toddler wading pool again, and we were the only ones using it. It has a canopy over the pool so although the air is hot, you don't have the blazing sun beating down on you.
Then after a quick dinner at Denny's, we went home to Get Something Done, the temperature having dropped (barely) below 100. I was going to work on the second tortoise burrow while Rocket Boy weeded the front yard. But then I had a brainstorm: I have strep throat. For the second time in a row. I am going to TAKE IT EASY FOR ONE BLOOMING EVENING. So I set the boo bears up to play with their water table and then I decided to take the tortoises for an outing. I brought them out of their pen to another part of the yard, dragged a patio chair over, and sat and watched them. Well, OK, for a minute or two I sat and watched them, in between running errands for Rocket Boy, and putting Baby B's shoes back on, over and over again, and kissing owies, and all that. But I didn't dig the burrow. Rocket Boy dug it instead, very efficiently.
At first they were very sweet, the two torteels, walking around and eating interesting new weeds. But then the shoving started. Remember, these tortoises have lived together for maybe 50 years, and currently they are sharing a narrow, dark burrow -- we thought, happily. But put them together in a large backyard and they fight! And here is the result of the fight:
Yep, the aggressive one managed to knock the peace-loving tortoise on its back. I was horrified. These are FEMALES. This is not supposed to happen. I righted the fallen tortoise and moved them much further apart. That made it harder to keep an eye on them, but I managed not to lose either one.
Eventually I realized that the reason they kept trying to hide under piles of leaves was that it was bedtime (the tortoise equivalent of rubbing one's eyes), so I put them back in their pen, and before you could say Jack Robinson, if you had been so inclined, they were both down in the burrow. Where I suppose the mean one again started trying to overturn the wimpy one. I don't know. The mysteries of desert tortoises are many.
And now I must go to bed, because I'm supposed to go on a walk at 6:30 tomorrow morning. Oh yeah, that'll happen.
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