She Who Hesitates

Ours are indoor cats. Nevertheless, they like to go "out," out being the screened in foyer leading to the front door which has hidden gaps somewhere down in the corners that allow smallish lizards (and, once, a baby black snake) in. The cats know they can occasionally chase a lizard, although they haven't caught one in months.

Recently, Jasmine, the mom, has got it in her head that she is the one to go out first and if she is preempted for any reason will not go at all. She will saunter, trot and (very rarely) gallop to the door indicating her wish to visit the foyer. On having the door opened for her she then stops dead pondering the commitment required to choose here or there, in or out.

The kids, on the other hand, experience no such existential qualms. They hear the door open and come running. If Jasmine makes up her mind before they arrive they will happily follow her out. If she remains racked by indecision they will scamper on past as if this were their first invitation to an incredible adventure.

Which pisses her off to no end.

If she was standing, she'll sit. If sitting, she'll glare at them until we give up coaxing and close the door. Or sometimes she'll just look at us to say, "Good riddance to them, I didn't want to go out there anyway" and then walk away.

But she does care. Once in a while, when the kids are either entering or leaving, if they are in range, she give one or the other a hiss and a swipe of her paw. But she absolutely will not go out unless she's first.

The funny thing is: the deference she demands would be hers if she were just a bit more decisive.

In a couple of weeks it shouldn't matter anyway. As the temperatures cool down and the humidity drops we'll be able to turn off the air conditioning, throw up the windows and leave the door open while we're home.

A Midsummer Night's Light Show

When I returned home yesterday evening the sky was overcast (we're back in a cycle of clear, bright mornings and rainy afternoons/evenings) so I settled in to watch the Rays lose another baseball game and didn't think about the night sky until I went to take the trash out before going to bed (about 1:30 a.m.).

The clouds near us had all gone away and the nearly full Moon was so bright it turned the sky a dark pale blue. Despite the glare, Mars was still visible just to the west and Saturn just to the east of the Moon. It was too bright to use the telescope on them, though.

However, the best part was much closer to home. Although the sky overhead was clear there was a huge arc of cumulus clouds along the horizon from south to west, all illuminated by moonglow. In addition, both ends of the arc were lit up by lightning. I couldn't really see the detail off to the west, only occasional flashes, but the thunder cell to the south was continuously active with streaks and bursts of light chasing across and around the clouds, often behind but sometimes with lightning bolts in front arcing across the sky and looking like nothing so much as an animation of nerve impulses racing through a brain.

There was no breeze and the clouds were far enough away (about 50 miles, or just south of Marco Island. I checked the weather radar later) that no thunder could be heard. Just a silent, unending, living light show under the Moon and planets and motionless palms.

I stood there for a good half hour just enjoying this awesome world.

That Time of Year

Well, we're finally recovered (mostly) from our Labor Day bacchanal.

My brother managed to get the lawn mowed and the bunting up along the fence by the path to the front door but the rain threatened and although it never did pour like it has every other day for the last two weeks, we wimped out and ate indoors.

I barbecued way too many ribs on the assumption my brother's new girl friend would be joining us which she didn't because she had apparently already made a commitment to her own kids' picnic (which was just as well because we didn't have enough corn on the cob, otherwise) so he and I ended up with basically a rack and a half each and, although we had left overs of the chips and dip and beans and potato salad and Cole slaw, we killed those ribs. (I suspect there may have been some Valium in the sauce because my brother collapsed and slept for six straight hours right afterward.)

So now Summer is unofficially over and Rainy Season is almost over and mango season is definitely over although its going to be next mango season before we manage to eat up all this year's harvest. What's next? Oh, look!

Catalogs.

Temperature Inversions

Now that we're officially into summer the water in the taps switches temperature. Cold runs hot and hot runs cold.

Technically, the hot water only runs cold until the water from the heater pushes the water that's been cooling down in the insulated piping through, then it warms up again. And, technically, the cold water only runs hot until the water from the outside (buried) pipes pushes the water that's been heating up in the uninsulated piping through but, until then the water from the "cold" tap can easily get over 115F. Even when the cold water finally cools down it's only to room temperature and never anywhere near the brain-achingly delicious New England well water I grew up with.

This is because our house is built on a solid concrete slab. Our pipes, once they get to the house, do not (can not) run underground but rise up and travel through the attic/crawl space and then down through the walls to the various taps. The attic with the merciless Florida summer sun beating down on it. The hot water pipes are insulated to keep the heat in which slows but does not prevent heat loss but also slows heat gain. The cold water pipes, being uninsulated absorb the full effects.

This is a common situation down here, although frequently an unpleasant surprise to visitors and new residents. I doubt any homes in the area have basements or cellars in which to place utilities. We're too close to sea level and the water table is too high.

The cats haven't figured out what to do with the ice cubes in their water dish, yet.

High Summer

I know Summer doesn't "officially" start for another day or so but I am a big fan of the ancient traditional seasons where the longest days of the year are "Mid-Summer" and the longest nights are "Deep Winter." This is brought to mind by the sudden appearance of a string of the most glorious bright, dry, sunny, slightly breezy days we've seen in months. We've turned off the air-conditioning and flung open all the windows.

We can expect one or two more before the humidity returns.

Time to turn off the computer and go play outside.

The Control of Illusion

Mom has been going through a slight OCD episode these last few days wherein she has been playing constantly with the control for her heating pad. She's also written all over the pad itself, but that's a different story. She keeps the pad with her all day on the couch although lately she's only been using it intermittently. (Last summer she kept it on all the time, even when the temperature in the house was over 80F. Now, in mid-"winter" she sometimes doesn't even use it when the temperature drops below 70F. It's really more habit than actual cold that triggers usage.)

This lack of use has not prevented her from leaving the thing on all day so that it heats the arm of the couch very nicely, thank you. We've spoken to her about this several times, explaining that it's OK to turn it on if she intends to use it but that it must be off otherwise. She's retained some garbled version of this which is, I believe, what has triggered her nervous attention to the control device.

A couple of times, now, after she's fiddled with it for several minutes, when I've asked her what she's doing she's said, "I don't know where this goes!" I explain that it doesn't need to go anywhere, it's OK to leave it right where it is unless she wants to use it, otherwise just leave it off, but she doesn't believe me. Last night she was pulling on the cord and I warned her she would unplug it if she wasn't careful. She insisted she didn't want to do that and was just trying to find out where the control was supposed to go.

She seems most content when she's stuffed the control down between the arm of the couch and the cushion whether it's on or not.

Lazy, Hazy Daze

So, it was a perfect summer day yesterday, sunny, scattered clouds, warm (but not excessively like the rest of the country), no humidity (that's always the killer this time of year) and I talked Mom into going outside for a while, something she just does not do anymore. She sat out front in the shade at the edge of the grass in a cushioned lawn chair and I brought her her book and a drink and joined her with one of each of my own and we watched my brother mow the lawn.

She offered me some of her juice assuring me, "I haven't tasted it, yet." I showed her I had my own.

She said it was too hot out and her juice was going to get warm. I said that was why I had put an ice cube in it.

She said it was too hot and the ice cube was going to melt before she could finish her drink. I said it was still better than no ice cube. (I didn't mention that she normally doesn't want ice in her drinks at all.) She said, "That's true," and offered to share with me. I showed her my drink. We both sat and read for a while.

After about forty minutes she said, "My seat's getting sore and it's too hot out here," so we packed everything back up and moved inside where the thermostat is set at 79. She put on her sweater, sat on the couch and read her book.

Saunamobile

I foolishly left my car windows open last night. In my defense, it hasn't rained directly here in several days (although we could see the rain coming down all around us) and the humidity was way down and there were no clouds of consequence nearby. So I took the chance.

Somewhere around 11 p.m. I realized the sound I was hearing was not the air conditioner fan but rain pounding on the roof. I could see the full moon through the clouds even though it was pouring. So I ran out and put the windows up even though the interior was already wet. (I think I must have gotten out there fairly early in the storm because the seats were damp but not soaked through.)

When I went out to retrieve the mail at noon today I opened the driver's door and was stunned by a blast of intense humidity. I could hardly breathe as I sat down to insert the key to activate the windows. The buttons were so hot I couldn't maintain contact and had to press them intermittently. Even an hour later the car is noticeably more humid than the surrounding air.

On the bright side, a few minutes in the car makes the rest of the Florida day seem very comfortable.

Necrophages in the Shade

We had a rough weekend in terms of system collapses and infrastructure breakdowns. People are all O.K. but the air conditioning quit on Sunday and my brother's truck has developed an out-of-alignment condition that led on Saturday to a shredded front tire which was rust welded to the wheel so he was vehicleless until today when he could take it into the shop. He got back just as the HVAC guy was crawling into the attic.

So it was no real surprise to me to find four turkey vultures on the front lawn standing in a circle under a large shade tree. One had the red head of an adult but the other three were black-headed juveniles. They stood a little over two feet tall with three to three-and-a-half foot wingspans. They circled the tree and each other occasionally rising up into the lower branches although they would descend again almost immediately.

I don't think they eat air conditioners or pickup trucks but apparently they can sense the entropy around here and are hanging out in hopes something carbon-based is next.