Potporri

A number of the lesser things in life:

Freak Chili Accident

So Sunday night I burned myself in a freak chili accident. I was not cooking the chili. I was not serving the chili. No, I was just carrying the chili across the kitchen and jostled the bowl to avoid running into someone else. This jostling spilled the chili onto my wrist and arm. I dropped the full bowl of chili on the kitchen floor as I screamed in pain, cursed (which is always optional in such situations) and ran for the kitchen faucet. Spent the rest of the evenings nursing my burned wrist (neosporin and ice), and now have four brilliant red stripes on the underside of my wrist where the lava-hor chili seared my flesh (it is striped because I was holding my hand in such a way that the flesh bunched up where it was burned). Kate did the cleanup, and noted that the teapots on the lower shelf needed cleaning anyway.

This is why I don't tell my mother I blog - this would get a phone call from her.

Weather Report

It rained here last night, the first sizable rain in two months, a quarter-inch up on the hill. Seattle is legendary for being rainy, but is less-well-known for a dry, high summer, which this year was drier and higher than normal. All the local lawns perished, and even ours, with the benefit of shade and a motley collection of different grasses, turned more brown than green. We emptied the water barrels in the back that we use for gardening, and were working on the front ones.

It was about a quarter-inch, and to be frank, its just a start. We could use a long, wet fall and winter to recharge the aquifers and reservoirs. We can also use the wet weather to convince people not to move here - Seattlites sort of "round up" when they talk about how wet it is out here, because otherwise more people will come here.

The continual sun and warmth did start getting to people. Even Kate, who is a hot-weather fiend, felt the oppression of continually blue skies ("Creepy" she says). Now things seem to be getting back to normal (rain overnight, nice overcast days) and people should relax a little.

Flag Day Redux

Kate, by the way, doesn't read this blog (or claims not to, anyway). However, we do talk about it, and she had this to add about the recent Flag Day article. We were at a stoplight, next to a pickup festooned with flag bumper stickers and declarations of American bravado.

"These colors don't run," she read aloud. She paused a beat, then added, "But they sure do fade."

And that's why I married her.

More later,