The Lions Don't Sleep Tonight

It's hot!!!

We know that this is about as trite as can be, but the keeper even thinks that it has become a bit much. She walked around today wearing a wet bandana around her head and another one around her neck! She tried to get us to sleep on ice packs but we preferred the dirt under the deck and the shed. Alice didn't want to burn her paws and so had to be carried into the house. I let the keeper wrap me in a wet washcloth and that felt good. While we chilled, she cleaned out the shed. She was going to do a few other things, but was sensible. Last night we stayed up late watching The Curious Life of Benjamin Button. We thought it a haunting movie, time going backwards. The keeper thought it needed editing. "Three hours is just too long." Yesterday the keeper was at the library and all the books she was looking for just happened to be on the "Notable" shelf. She said it was almost as good as winning Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. She came home with another bagful and so proud of her new habit...librarying. They had set the library up as a cooling station, and offered free juice. It was really crowded with people just hanging out.

Listening around the neighborhood we can hear the steady hum of neighbors' air conditioners. Who would think that we would need one of those here? We are grateful to have a ceiling fan that seems to push all of the hot air down on us. At least it's a warm tropical breeze, with the perfume of Princess Diana lilies coming from the living room. Tonight the keeper set up an outside reading station, and brought out a lamp to the deck so she could read her latest Linda Ollsen novel. She made us come in when she started to hear the raccoons rattling the bushes. After a while she turned off the light and just stared at the moon wrapped in a gauzy haze and the rosary of solar lights illuminating the back yard. Very lovely.

She sat there for quite a while because she knew that this was the closing of her fifth decade and she would be moving into a whole new phase manana. It seemed important to mark it somehow with the moon and the stars.