Dry heat....

Can be a beautiful thing, I must say, although I was a little weirded out when I got home and wasn't sticking to anything. Midwest Camp was an absolute blast!!!! I was so busy but for some reason I felt much less stressed out than I do in Portland. If there is any way for me to go next year, I'm there man. I made some wonderful new friends and got to catch up with some old ones. We had some killer storms while I was there, and I got caught in one. Sheets of water, veritable sheets, I say, and Joel the Genius once again said "let's go walking in the rain" and Mindy the Moron said "sure!" *hides stern look for a moment* It was really cool, actually. *looks stern again* Missouri is very green, a definite change from here. It was like going to Guadalajara last year. I came from dead, brown, burnable stuff to lush, beautiful greenery and thunderstorms. Speaking of dead and brown........ my hanging baskets and the strawberries...... well, let's just say it's a bit of a tragedy, really. And that stupid tomato plant is really beginning to try my patience. Hmmm, I'm afraid I don't have anything else all that fascinating to say, so I'll just keep this post short!

Ah, the joys of summertime

Spawn and I have just spent a glorious morning outside enjoying the temperatures before they climb above one hundred. I had tea with fresh strawberries and lemon cucumbers (yay!) out on the patio and then laboured for a bit in..... you'll never guess...... come on...... that's right, the garden! How'd you know? I had to put some more rock down between the beds as they were getting a little muddy and attempt to head off the nasturtiums bid to volunteer their way to Total Garden Domination. My snapdragons seem to be recovering from Campmeeting abuse *ahem* MOTHER, but the lupine and dahlia just look mangy. Okay, I know, enough already. Anyway, later we sat on the front steps in the shade of the tree (that lost some limbs in the Great Snow) and got petted, if we were Spawn. I'm trying to spot water some of the lawn and the sprinkler makes this very calming whiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrr click hissssss noise. Speaking of hiss, I also got to watch a snake in the grass on his journey to the trees, and listened to the whisper of the morning breeze through the leaves. I tell ya, I love where I live. Mom thinks I haven't moved out just because I'm lazy (yeah, yeah, that's only a little part of it, so hush), but really it's because I like it out here. So we sat around for twenty minutes and did nothing. It was great.

Last night I went kind of with Mom and Dad to the opening concert of the Britt Festivals Classical Festival, which featured a disgustingly young violinist. I say kind of because mon pere et ma mere left at intermission to avoid me stabbing them with knitting needles (very sexy knitting needles, too, I might add) to keep them from snoring. Of course, they had put in a very long day and Dad is still recovering from Virginia (he said it was COOL here. COOL!!!) but still. I also got to hear Dvorak's Carnival Overture (very fun) and his Symphony No. 6 in D Major, the third movement of which I have fallen in love with (I know there's a dangling participle there, but I can't figure out how to fix it. With the third movement of which I have fallen in love, perhaps?). Mom and I are supposed to go hear a cellist tonight, but I still think she should save the ticket and find someone to go with her to the fabulous White Russian Nights concert that I desperately want to go to but can't as I will be in Missouri. In the heat. And the humidity. With the bugs. Oh dear.

Heat Wave!!

For anyone else who's going to Midwest, I just checked weather.com and it looks like it's going to be in the low 90s (translation: steambath) during camp. The only potential upside is that there may be thunderstorms *smothered maniacal laughter*Lightning!! Thunder!! Wind!! Hopefully I'll be indoors for all of these because the last major storm I was in wound up with me getting soaked. I don't know if this little Oregon flower will survive the humidity or not, though. I am a delicate blossom (that's enough with the snorting!!) and humidity does bad things to me. Our weather here is supposed to spike back up to the 100s, just in time for Dad to get back from the Boy Scout Jamboree and try to work before we head to Midwest.

Oh, quick interesting fact that my co-worker (we're calling this a break) just told me: China has more English speakers than the U.S. Now before you all gasp "that's not true" I present some data (datum?). The estimated population of the U.S. is 295,734,134. The estimated population of China is 1,306,313,812. With that many hundreds of millions more people, is it really at all surprising that more of them than us speak English?

Ah well, I'd better get back to work. Oh that's right, I thought you would all find it entertaining that I just sent said co-worker into near hysterics because I'm going through our entire customer database correcting things like misspelled names and discrepancies in account names. She says I'm anal retentive, I say I'm accurate.

Alone!

I know some of you are still at home, but I still understand how Melina felt when we were all at Campmeeting. The Washington, Oregon, and California Youth Camps are all going on and I am (virtually) alone!! Okay, not really, Mom and I have been bonding and I know there are others like me out there, but still...... *looks pitiful* Who can I call? Actually, I just called my friend Fish like I should have done months ago. Does anyone else ever feel like they're a bad friend and letting good friendships get moldy? I declare this as good a week as any to write/call/telegraph/smoke signal a friend you haven't talked to in way too long!! Go! Shoo! You're all online, go email!!! After you finish reading, of course. *furtive look* And now for garden smut..... GET BACK HERE!!!! You think I can't see you trying to sneak off and avoid me!! I'll just say... lemon cucumbers are ripe and the lawn is dying. Oops! So are the pink geraniums. I'll go take care of those.

On a much more serious note, two wonderful men in my church both passed away this week: Bros. Al Buss and Bud Schleigh. These men dedicated their lives to God and it showed. Bud used to drive clear out into the boonies to pick my family up for Sunday School and Al gave my dad his first job. The world has lost two great, loving men and our thoughts and prayers should be with their families. Bryan has a tribute to Bro. Bud on his site: www.javaslinger.com