It has cooled of from 105 all the way down to 98. I
guess I have to acknowledge that we have reached summer. California is
getting nervous, hoping to avoid the fires that destroyed so much last year.
Pacific Gas & Electric is actually talking about turning off power to people
in dangerous areas for as much as 4 days. I'm trying to decide how we
would survive four days without electricity. I hope it doesn't come to
that.
I have enough electric gadgets and ways to turn them on
without plugging them in, but not for four days. We have flashlights
and candles.
We have a gas stove and a French press, so we would still
have coffee, for example.
We could drive to another town and spend the day in a mall or
at a movie if the house got to be an oven. But I don't know what we'd
do about things in the refrigerator or freezer. It would be a good
excuse to eat meals out (every situation has a silver lining). This is
what happens when first world people are faced with possible third world
problems. At least the toilets would still flush.
But looking on the bright side, four days with no way to hear
Trump. Doesn't sound too bad.
The problem with the heat, even in an air conditioned house,
is that just knowing how hot it is outside is is so enervating
(and this is a dry heat, the good kind) -- I simply have absolutely
no energy whatsoever. As soon as I wake up from a nap, I am looking
forward to my next one. Talk about being a lazy slug.
Fortunately, Ned didn't come today, so I had no sorting of anything to do.
Lately I seem to be getting a "normal" amount
of sleep, in a not normal way. I start out on the couch and sleep
almost exactly 3 hours, then go to the recliner and am awake for 2-3 hours,
and then fall back asleep for another 3-4 hours....and then there is the
mid-afternoon nap.
I mention this because I have started
watching the new Netflix series of Tales of the City, one or two
episodes until I feel sleepy, and then go right back to sleep.
This morning I woke up to the background
noise of Live with Kelly and Ryan. Ryan Seacrest was
interviewing the Jonas Brothers and they were discussing "comfort objects"
they had as children.
I was a thumb sucker. I don't know how
long I sucked my thumb but apparently I sucked it so hard the doctor felt I
was in danger of developing an infection, so every day I would stand on the
toilet seat, to make me taller, and soak my thumb in some vile tasting
solution. After I had soaked the thumb, they put a wire cage-like
thing over the thumb.
I don't know that it really worked. I
developed a taste for the wet metal and when they didn't put that on me, I
would lick and lick and lick until I finally got rid of all the bad taste of
whatever I was soaking my thumb in. I wonder what they ever did to
finally break me of sucking my thumb.
Tom and David never had comfort objects, and
never sucked anything either, but Jeri sucked her two middle fingers and Ned
and Paul each sucked their thumbs, though not with the determination that I
had as a kid.
But the three older kids each had their own
"comfort object." For Jeri it was a frilly satiny-feeling comforter
with a kind of lace trim. We carried that with us everywhere.
She had to have the lacy corner stuffed in her nose when she went to sleep.
Ned had a thermal blanket to which he was
addicted. It got so old and ratty that the entire center section of it
fell out and he then only had the satin binding, which tired itself in knots
with threads of the thermal part hanging off of it We lost it one time
and searched everywhere for it, while Ned cried and cried.
Finally, we mentioned it to our neighbor, who said he found something like
that on his lawn. He checked his trash and there it was...the precious
blanket. I can't imagine how he would think of something so "sacred"
as trash!
The most notable thing about that blanket,
though, is that 51 year old Ned still has it in the pocket of one of
his jackets.
By the time Paul came along, I was determined
we were not going to have the blanket problem, so I never gave him
the same blanket every night. I had three blankets and I rotated them.
And when Char was babysitting him and having a difficult time calming him
down, a cut up swaths of an old dress of mine, that smelled like me, and
that made him happy and we didn't have to bring a big blanket with us.
HOWEVER, that plan backfired on me and he
reached an age where in order to go to sleep anywhere, he had to have all
three blankets AND all of the swatches from my dress! Parents are
never smarter than their kids.
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