IN WHICH IT GETS TOO HOT

Well, the flea poisoning man came today. It has been hellacrazy this year. I finally couldn't stand it anymore, plus, my sheets have many tiny bloodstains from me scratching in the night. Emmylou and I are both allergic to fleas, so it is worse for us. Does this fall into the category of too much information?

Much later that day.

It's still hot at 10:30. You know, the sun, that really shines brightly. And at this latitude, it can just be piercing, even late in the afternoon, early into the evening. At the most excellent (good prices, good merchandise) farmer's market in Escondido yesterday, it would not let us be, let us escape. Plus, Escondido being on the way to the desert, it was quite warm. And not enough trees. Let me repeat, not enough trees. There was, however, an excellent bread vendor (the addictive kind of bread), and meltingly good watermelon. 

That said, Escondido has some interesting "old town" parts, fading away. There was a cool fabric store, going out of business, of course. There was an old main street where the dead department stores and dress shops are now empty. There are a few businesses trying to repopulate with what is currently "cool" ... a good coffee shop replete with requisite teenagers arguing about art and the meaning of life, and nice craft beer shop with good food and good prices. I was sorely tempted to drag MW into the bar to play with locals in trivia. (Maybe that's a good gig for me: trivia ringer.)

In other news, today was "payday" by which time we are scraping for cat food and coffee. This necessitates a trip to Costco for the best deals. I chose a new location (Lakewood) only to find there was a huge used book/cd/dvd store right behind. Of course, I could have spent hours but was able to contain myself reasonably.  I found a nicely priced volume of the Cooks Illustrated The Best Soups and Stews (Janet's favorite winter food and yes, I know, I do not need any more cookbooks). I already have my eye on hot and sour soup, which looks reasonably easy. There were some pretty great $1 cds ... my favorite find being Blossom Dearie!

This one is a gem! It's likely good that I did not know about this emporium before now, but it is a good place to kill some time. And who knows, maybe a good place to sell albums ... and a hell of a lot closer than downtown LA.

While I was driving down the coast to Escondido yesterday, I spent some time thinking about our constructions about ourselves. Specifically, I was thinking of my albums which I sold two summers ago. I still feel as if I own them. But, clearly, I do not. I think about specific records which were likely quite valuable. I think of the records that did not make it to cd or even downloadable. Fuck, it hurts. But what is the mechanism by which possessions become part of a person? This does not seem very Buddhist. 

Well, I should be reading Middlemarch instead of fooling around with Halt and Catch Fire or my other wastes of time.

BLACK POSTCARDS

The calendar full, future unknown.

The cable hums the folksong from no country.

Falling snow on the lead-still sea. Shadows

                                       wrestle on the dock.

II

In the middle of life it happens that death comes

and takes your measurements. This visit

is forgotten and life goes on. But the suit is

                                  sewn in silence.

—Tomas Tranströmer, translated from the Swedish by Joanna Bankier, lifted from World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Timezzt, edited by Katherine Washburn and John S. Major