• I’m living in a sauna.

It’s very hot and unbelievably humid out here in the Northeast. The windows of the cottage are sporting a layer of moisture which makes the view decidedly foggy. We had at least 4 thunderstorms yesterday and they were whoppers.

This morning I went outside to get some pictures and the danged rain has denuded lots of the phlox, forced the branches of the butterfly bush downward, and weeds have seemingly sprung up overnight. This is that time in the summer that I begin to lose interest in weeding the garden; I look at it, sigh, and move on. But I think I’ll force myself to weed it once this rain lets up – next week. Yep. The storms and the humidity are going to be with us until the first part of next week.

Let’s not even think about how much grass we’re going to have to mow.

The daylily that bloomed in very early summer presented me with two surprise flowers this morning.

• We may or may not go to IKEA today. We’ll see. If not, it will be next week. I need to get a few things there.

• We’ve been watching the Olympics, especially swimming and diving, which are our favorites. I won’t say anything about Michael Phelps because others have said it much better than I can. He is a joy to watch. Extraordinary. We are so lucky to witness this incredible athlete over the course of the last four – or is it five? – Olympics. All of the other medal winners are amazing, as well as those athletes who train and sacrifice and don’t come home with a medal, but are still the best in the world. One of my former students from Boston University is married to Silver Medalist, Scott Donie – a diver who medaled in Barcelona. I’ve been asking her questions on FB – about the small towels, for instance. It turns out they are shammys. And then there’s my six degrees of separation connection through my sister. My nephew swam competitively for years and so the family knows Ryan Murphy and his brother and parents (according to Mere, the nicest people you could ever hope to meet) and several other swimmers that are competing in Rio.

The Olympics has been a welcome change during this election season; something hopeful that brings the world together, instead of separating us. More, please.

• Those links I promised you:

A List of Facts Debunking Anti-Hillary Clinton Myths, Lies & Ridiculous Conspiracies.

Why Are You Convinced Hillary is a Criminal?

And this Op-Ed in the NY Times from the pen of David Brooks: Trump’s Enablers Will Finally Have to Take a Stand. 

Finally, the Op-Ed by Thomas Friedman that I referenced on Wednesday: Trump’s Wink Wink to ‘Second Amendment People.’

Read or don’t read, whatever you like.

• Despite the occasional reader who never comments but feels the need to finally comment in order to tell me that they feel a political post has ‘no place’ on my blog so they will be unsubscribing, I’m going to write about this election when I feel moved to. I won’t inundate you with posts, though I could write every day on it and never run out of things to say! This blog is a mix of things and that mix includes the things I feel passionately about, including: my husband, my dogs, my house, my garden, my collections, kindness, common decency, and the state of our world, especially the state of our country.

As always, I  determine the content. But you know that. I won’t be censoring myself in order to keep the number of readers I have at a certain level to gain more ad income. If I’d wanted to do that, I would have shaped this blog into a real money maker and never issued any statement that could be interpreted as provocative. It would have been pretty. It would have been bland. It would have bored me to tears.

That ain’t me, my friends. As my dear friend Joe once said, “You don’t want to mess with the Hill girls.” The Hill girls don’t shrink from speaking out.

Okay.

Happy Friday.