The sky this morning. We had a stormy weekend with a few severe thunderstorm warnings. The weather was, shall we say, unsettled. Today will be rain and storm free, so we’ll finally get a break.

I’ve also done something to my lower right back near my hip. God knows how, because I don’t remember any twinge or warning. So, I’m taking it easy for the next couple of days.

It’s so annoying.

July. God knows what the Supreme Court will come up with today as to the immunity of a President. I’m girding my loins for the decision. But, back to the month change. June seemed to go by rather quickly – I’m surprised it’s July already. I don’t want the summer to fly by because I so enjoy the garden and the flowers and the birds and critters. We’ve had a lot of activity at the birdbath, with birds waiting in line to jump in. The other day a female cardinal was on the edge of the birdbath waiting for a robin to finish bathing. She just sat there, and the robin, to his/her credit, wasn’t threatened by her. Then, when the robin finished and flew off, I fully expected the cardinal to jump in as well. But no, she just sat there, and then flew away.

Oh, I am so fascinated by these birdies!

We’re holding off on more mowing until the grass gets a big longer. Plus, the clover is blooming and I know the bunnies like clover. I’m happy to keep it available on the menu for now.

What else? Babylon Berlin, Season 4 is as brilliant as the first three seasons. The streaming service is releasing two episodes a week, so we have to wait until Tuesday for more. It’s simply the best series I’ve ever seen. We’re also still watching Northern Exposure. Tonight, we’ll finish Season 4 and then there are only two seasons left.

And I’m reading The Light Years, as well as a book on Sissinghurst, which was the home of Vita Sackville-West and her husband, famous for its gardens.

Pru on a walk in our woods. (I got 3 mosquito bites while taking this picture.)

We have some celebrations this week: Meredith’s birthday is on Wednesday, and we celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the day we met on Thursday. Whoo hoo!

Stay safe,

Happy Monday.

Balloon flowers and blooming ground cover in the memorial garden.

Not enough sleep last night. I woke up around 3 am and never got back to sleep. Then we woke up to no internet, so I had to call our provider and was told it was a large outage, perhaps due the storms we had on Wednesday, which hit some towns nearby very hard. We lucked out, with just a few twigs on the ground.

I was sure I wouldn’t be able to post today, but it came back around 7:30 am. So here I am.

I’ve heard about the debate. I refuse to read much more about it because I believe these things – while dramatic at the moment – don’t mean a whole lot in the end, even though every pundit overreacts. All will be well. I will say that there should be immediate fact checking in any debate – for both candidates. When you have a pathological liar/felon/etc./etc. running for office the debate host should be providing that information in real time, not after it’s over.

Anyway.

I didn’t see the dove flying back and forth on Wednesday. And I didn’t see a nest. So my guess is that a fledgling was on a branch and was hesitant to fly any further, so the dove mama or papa was feeding it until it finally took off. No nest or babies were on the ground. I walked it very carefully before we mowed, just to make sure.

We used the new mower, but it was very hot by the time we got it set up, so it felt exhausting even though it is much easier to push. And we have to adjust the handle as it was too high for me and that made my shoulders sore.

It’s been a strange week, somewhat disconcerting week.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

Bee Balm, a few days later. It’s such a funny looking flower. I love it.

Well, the heat advisory keeps getting extended. Originally, it was through Thursday, Then, they extended it through Friday. Now, this morning, I discovered it’s been extended through Sunday. The heat index reached 99° yesterday. Unbearable. Thank goodness for a/c, but believe me, we are getting very restless around here. I go out in the morning and water everything in sight, as well as all the porch plants. Yesterday, I had to go to the post office and then went on a quick early morning grocery run. After that, it was indoors for the rest of the day. The next few days look to be extremely hot and humid with thunderstorms off and on.

Help!

After having waited for almost a year, we finally were able to purchase a new lawn mower on Wednesday. We have yet to assemble the handle, etc., as it’s still in the box in the shed. Too hot.

Anyway, we hadn’t been to Lowes in a while. We headed to the lawnmower section. I already knew what model we wanted and had calculated the cost plus sales tax. We had the cash in hand. The usual ensued; finding an employee to help us, getting one of those long, low carts, then loading the huge box onto the cart. We proceeded to the checkout area, where we discovered that.  every lane had been changed over to self-checkout. The entire area. When we asked, “This is now all self-checkout, ALL of it?” the employee stationed there said “Yes.” I started grumbling (audibly) about the fact that we now have to do the work that employees once did (and how did it impact those employees?) and the woman said something like “You still get service.” What service? We provide the service.

Anyway, she said that if we dragged that cart across the store to the far end, we could check out in “lumber” and that there would be an actual human being working the cash register (do we still call them that?)

We did that, and after waiting a while, because apparently a lot of us prefer working with a human being, I promptly discovered that they were charging too much and that the box that had been pulled off the shelf was for another, more expensive model. So we explained all of that and quoted the price of the model we wanted and then we waited for a half-hour while someone found the right model and brought it to the checkout area. That would have been even more of a hassle if we were in the self-checkout area, getting ready to feed $100 bills into the machine.

We’ll be doing more business with our local True Value from now on.

As Don said, it all started with having to pump your own gas. No more oil check, no more washing the windshield – all of it gone.

Same problem with our local grocery store. Why do I have to feed the items through a scanner, try to find the vegetables in a list of vegetables, hoping I have the right version of broccoli or potatoes? Invariably something doesn’t go right and I have to wait for an attendant to help me. Why am I doing the work that a cashier used to do? There are still some cashiers there, but there’s usually only one on duty. (This is the same store that is undergoing a massive renovation dictated by “Corporate” that has been going on for a couple of months and where no one can find anything anymore, including the employees.)

I know there are varying opinions on all of this, but I am firmly in the ‘self-checkout is okay for a few items when I’m in a hurry, but that’s it’ category. We weren’t about to feed $500 in cash into a little slot when we were buying that lawnmower.

This opens up a whole can of worms, doesn’t it? Customer service – now usually done with a chat bot and/or disembodied voice. Cashiers put out of work. I know that there are times we really don’t want to engage with an employee/cashier, but I rather like it. Don and I are the kind of people who ask how the cashier is, how their day is going, talk about the weather. Always.

You can’t do that with a machine. The whole experience is depersonalized. Thankfully, we checked out with a cashier in the lumber section and were therefore able to have human interaction. We didn’t have to wait for an attendant to come help us.

On that same subject, I distrust AI and make an effort to avoid anything powered by it. I just re-watched the 60 Minutes  interview with the man who developed AI in which he warns us of the ultimate danger: AI will end up smarter than us and will take over.

This is an improvement? I keep seeing Hal, the computer in 2001, A Space Odyssey, saying “NO, I can’t do that”  to Keir Dullea.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.