Laconia

Wednesday night we got an actual Delta breeze; we were able to open windows and use the whole-house fan for the first time in like three weeks. Thursday we had a high of 93* F and haze; air quality was bad but nothing like we’d been having, so I walked after I ate lunch. Aside from the haze, it was really nice. I walked through an older neighborhood that has large lots and wonderful trees. There’s a pair of bluebirds along that stretch, though I’m not sure if I saw them this time. There was a flock of finches, maybe goldfinches, and a couple of mourning doves, and one or two mid-sized perching birds, but the sun was in my eyes so I saw only profiles—and one straggling finch that flew across the road after the others, and which perched long enough for me to tell that it, at least, was a goldfinch.

Friday was forecast 95* F so I walked again, but the air wasn’t as good, and I took the other route—which is through new development, out to the parkway where it parallels the levee, and has a long, hot stretch because the houses block any natural air-flow. Not a good choice for warm weather, but the route lets me see what’s going on in the wider neighborhood. I did have to recover a bit, after. Stupid hot flashes.

Friday night we watched The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966), which was just there randomly in the list of free movies. M said she remembered thinking it was hilarious when she saw it as a kid; D said he hadn’t thought it was so funny, and M said she probably saw it with her brother (who is hilarious on his own) and his friends, so D conceded that under those circumstances it would be pretty fun. I figured it couldn’t be too bad, because it has Alan Arkin, Johnny Winters, and Carl Reiner, who do good work, so we gave it a shot.

The movie is about a Russian submarine that runs aground off an island near Cape Cod, and the chaotic events that occur once the locals find out about the Russian invasion. Mendocino, Fort Bragg, and Noyo Harbor stand in for New England. The cinematography is quite good, and the best part of the movie might actually have been seeing what Mendocino looked like, when it was a lovely, quiet coastal town.

After the sub is beached, nine crewmen are sent ashore at first light; their mission is to find a motorboat large enough to get the submarine off the sandbar. These hapless sailors, only two of whom speak any functional English, would have a difficult time of accomplishing their objective unnoticed at the best of times, but they arrive off-season, on the day that the last vacationing family is packing up to leave. The local population is about 200 people, all of them nosy, as small-town people tend to be. In one scene, eight of the sailors infiltrate a residential, mostly rural block; there’s nobody else on the street, and their hopping fences and stealth maneuvers are more noticeable than if they’d just walked down the middle of the road.

There’s a lot of cold-war paranoia, on both sides, and a few near-disasters. There are also some funny moments and a few absurd, hilarious ones. Some of the humor hasn’t aged well, especially the physical comedy based on two characters, tied together, having to hop down a flight of stairs. But overall it was a gentle, funny movie, where good sense prevails at every crucial moment. That and the scenery made it the perfect escape from our current grim reality. There’s also a cute, charismatic dog and a very clever horse in the cast.

Yesterday we considered a walk, but there are more fires in the county so we did our grocery run instead. I read most of the day, a re-read of William Gibson’s The Peripheral because the sequel is available from the library. All I remembered was that I’d wanted to read what happened next, as soon as I finished it. It was definitely worth reading again, though Gibson’s prose sometimes feels choppy. It’s definitely distinctive. I also had a brief nap because the smoke or particulates or both are giving me headaches. And then we had dinner and watched JoJo Rabbit which is excellent, and was both as funny as and sadder than I expected.

Today will probably be a repeat of yesterday, minus the grocery run. I’m mostly failing at painting my toenails; already had to remove the first coat on one foot because it was unsightly. Maybe I’ll continue working on the photos from il Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile, in Torino (Turin, to mono-linguals). But Agency is every bit as engrossing as The Peripheral so I might lack sufficient motivation to do anything but read, today.

...slight intermission, during which I ironed a few things and ate lunch. Probably should have taken something for the headache, but I just did a second coat of polish and will have to wait until it dries, now. C’est la vie.

There’s a Russian proverb that says “Work is not a wolf – it won't run away to the forest.“ It’s like “all work and no play makes Jack die of overwork at 53.” Very much the opposite of “never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” Sometimes I wonder what activities Benjamin Franklin would have put off until tomorrow. Would dying have been on the list?

I meant to dead-head the roses two weeks ago. Saturday morning I had a migraine; Sunday morning we went to the grocery store. It was much too hot in the afternoons, and still uncomfortably warm in the evenings. “Oh well, I’ll do it next weekend,” I thought.

Then we had a heat wave with several days in a row over 100* Fahrenheit. By the time the next weekend rolled around, there were multiple fires burning up and down the state. Monday wasn’t too bad. Tuesday night I smelled smoke and thought noting of it; Wednesday morning we woke to find our bedrooms coated in ash. D washed the windows while M and I cleaned inside and washed all our bedding. M hosed down the patio and watered the plants, but by dinner time everything was covered in ash again.

Saturday M’s cousin came to visit and brought brunch. Air quality was too bad for outside activity by 10 a.m., so I didn’t dead-head the roses yesterday afternoon. This morning, we went to the grocery store. After we got home, I went to pick up the mail. It’s a short walk to the mailbox but the air quality was bad enough that I definitely wasn’t going outside again, no matter how bad the roses need attention.

Looking at the air quality forecast for the Sacramento area, I’m pretty sure that yard work isn’t on the schedule this week. But then again, those poor roses look terrible.

Maybe if I go out before 7 a.m. and wear a mask, it might be okay. It should be a quick job: between the wind and the heat, there aren’t any intact roses in sight. I won’t have to hunt around for rose hips or spent blooms without cutting just-opened flowers or buds...

Is this a didactic allegory with the lesson that one ought to do what one can, when one can? No, it’s literally the actual dilemma. I didn’t feel like doing the thing, I put it off, and now doing the thing is more important and more inconvenient. (Though doing yard work with a migraine is pretty inconvenient.) This “responsibility” thing can be kind of a drag.