it's too hot to do anything

So, I just typed in "weather for Te" in google, and well, it completed my thought for me — "Tecumseh, MI." Apparently as I type this it is a mere 91˚F. I was just upstairs, sitting on the bed and pondering the fact that my bed was not as warm as a person, and thinking so maybe it was only in the eighties or something... Yeah, I just had to check.

Yesterday, this was the temperature:

The high was actually 103˚F. Global warming? Oh, it's real, it's damned real. There were a few scattered days of triple digit temps when I was a kid, and I remember the drought of 1988. But this oppressive heat? No, it wasn't this damned hot 5 years ago, let alone 10 or 20 years ago. I grew up in a house with no AC and I don't recall ever thinking as a child that my house (or the carpeting or the couches or the bed or chairs) was warmer than a person. 

Besides, this is Michigan, where's my freak snowstorm? At this point I would settle for rain.

It did rain yesterday. And when I ran outside to roll the windows up on my car — I was thinking about how fun it would be to just stand there in the rain in my granny jammies...

It's too damned hot to do anything. So, I have done nothing really this week. I mean, I did some stuff and I ate and I showered and cooked some food... but above a basic level of functioning, there is nothing happening here except a lot of sitting down in the basement with the fan on and pondering how much it would cost to have central air installed in this place.

Oh, did I neglect to mention that 2 weeks into consistent 90˚F temps — there is no AC in this house?  

These are the days that necessitate the daily consumption of ice cream... this was some sort of cherry vanilla that is long gone. The last time I was shopping in the frozen food aisle — Hudsonville was on sale. I was hoping they would have some of that orange sherbet/vanilla concoction that they came up with last year, but it was sold out. I ended up with something with caramel and apples instead... I'd really rather have the orange sherbet/vanilla... 

Of course, I'd also really like to just go crawl into my freezer and sit there for a couple of hours.

 This completely jinxes my etsy sales, but to occupy some time I sat down at the computer and configured some new designs for business cards, and then printed out a couple sheets... and then was bored enough yesterday that I actually sat there at my desk and cut them apart while watching some movie about Larry Hillblom that kept popping up on hulu — Shadow Billionaire. I had to leave for work before I made it to the end of the movie, but well, I now have a neat new stack of business cards.

 Other than groceries or lotto tickets, having to ship something is probably the only thing that is going to compel me to leave the house. Yeah, that's what the boxes might look like, depending on what I pull out of the cardboard pile.

I guess I should stop staring at the computer screen and trying to think of a conclusion to this entry now... I do, after all, have an episode of "The Glades," "Franklin & Bash," and "Episodes" to watch, plus I need to muster the strength to fill that part of the dishwasher with powder cleaning solution and turn it on. We're out of clean plates. I know, it's a high tragedy.

Stay cool and hydrated, and stay out of the sun!

sometimes...

Sometimes it feels like there is a dark cloud that follows me around... yeah, sorry, that's the best analogy I have.

I imagine that people visit this blog for something light or whimsical or pretty or entertaining or because it happened to pop up in your reading list or something. And right now I just don't have any of that in me.

Truth be told, it's been kind of a dark week. The kind of week where I'd just like to crawl into bed and not have to bother to get up or put on presentable clothes or go to work or run errands or do housework. Ironically, every time I go to bed, I wake up after 5-6 hours, and then I'm wide awake - in that I'm a bit of a zombie on less than 8 hours of sleep. I finally broke out the sominex a week ago, and let's just say I woke up feeling like zombie to the power of zombie... but I did sleep for like 8 hours uninterrupted. You know, and then woke up in a fog.

The bluebird babies died last week.

That was hard. They shouldn't have died, but those fucking invasive european house sparrows were in the yard - and they took over the nest and killed the babies.

I knew something wasn't right when I stood at the window and peered into the backyard with the binoculars and neither the male or female bluebird were going in and out of the nest box... and sure enough, the baby birds were dead...

So, since the sparrows thought they were going to use the other nest box after killing the bluebird babies, I destroyed their nest.

The bluebirds have left, and for days the male sparrow has sat out there in the yard calling and calling for a female.

European house sparrows have the most annoying call of any bird short of robins or starlings. And even though the weather is in the seventies and eighties - I can't bear to sit in the house and listen to the god damned bird that murdered my baby bluebirds sitting out there in the yard calling out for a mate...

So, the trap went up in the box. I hope to cease to hear that noise soon.

In North America — European house sparrows are an alien invasive species. They were brought here by morons, and once here - they never leave. They don't migrate, they just kill off our natural species. I despise european house sparrows.

The nest in the early stages... before the hatchlings were killed.

Anyway, I'd like to open the windows and let in some fresh air. And hopefully that time will come again soon.

In the mean time, the house wren has taken up residence in the nest box in the front yard.

House wrens are notoriously chatty little birds. So, all day the male and female are out there singing up a storm (it sounds like this). Wrens are a little better at fighting back against nest predation than the bluebirds, firstly because they build their nest out of sticks instead of grasses. When I go out and check the nest boxes and I find them filled with sticks — I know there's a wren in the area. Wrens are also smaller - so while they can easily maneuver through their mess of sticks, nest box predators cannot.

So, I guess, at least I still have the wrens... the wiley crazy chatty wrens. Well, that and there seems to be a cardinal nesting in the yard as well.

The ruby-throated hummingbirds have also returned, at least I've seen a male around the yard. I went out to get the mail last week and happened to look up at the defunct tv antenna, and yes, high up there that little bird was perched - surveying the yard, and probably waiting for me to go back indoors. Of course, I promptly made up a batch of what I will refer to sardonically as bird kool-aid. Hummingbird food is 1 cup of water to 1/4 cup of sugar. Boil the water, dissolve the sugar, let it cook and put it out in a feeder.

Of course, so I rush outside with the feeder - but my hummingbird is more interested in some annuals, the coral bells, and the weigela bush.

Of course, eventually, the backyard should be filled with the sound of tiny hummingbird cries as they return North in order to fight over the ample amount of food in the feeder on the back porch...

Birds... what territorial little creatures.

Anyway, hopefully my metaphorical dark cloud lifts soon... I'm tired of this funk.

Tomorrow's Gonna Be a Brighter Day — Jim Croce