It feels like I’ve been in survival mode since the end of June. The heatwaves keep coming. This week, Hurricane Debby rolled over us, so temperatures were actually in the 70s. It’s just that it stayed humid and the wind was so intense it gave me sinus migraines, blew down trees, and was disruptive overall.
I still tend my raised beds at home in the mornings. In the last month, the cukes, the cukes, the cukes are on fire!
SERIOUSLY. I give them away at work meetings. I eat one in a juice and one on a cream cheese sandwich every day. This is a BOUNTY of spiky green cucumbers!
I do enjoy checking in on the new community garden at work. Many people help care for it, and use it to teach out of.
This garden is cause for lots of hope and celebration. The peppers, above, were discarded from a plant sale. The tomatoes ripening now grew without human intervention in my backyard first. They sprouted everywhere BUT my garden beds—throughout the lawn, in the cracks in our patio stonework. I transferred these “volunteers’ at the beginning of July, and one month later, we see their fruits.
Beyond mornings in my garden, I’m still feeling quite cloistered.
Well, I had a birthday in late July and hosted friends indoors, with the promise of pizza, board games, and air conditioning.
The Olympics
It’s no secret that I’m not a sports fan, but I have been watching the Paris Olympics 2024 intently. This is the first time I’ve taken such an interest since childhood.
I knew this was my summer after the Opening Ceremony, which I LOVED!
I mean, no one is enjoying the games more than Snoop Dogg. But I’d like to think I’m a close second.
We’ve been streaming the highlights every night and it’s been fun to add rules for water polo or why do field hockey sticks look like that to my search history.
The Decameron
The reviews for this Netflix series haven’t been so good (also not to be confused with this recent Netflix series, ALSO inspired by the Decameron), but I enjoyed binging this while stuck indoors due to hostile climate!
The Decameron tells the story of an unlikely group of nobles and servants, stuck together in a great house trying to escape the Bubonic Plague, robbers, and maybe their own pasts.
It’s raunchy and funny and a reminder that great societal upheavals can be survived with humor and storytelling.
Also a reminder that Tony Hale is a delight!
Book Machine
I received a new Kindle Paperwhite for my birthday. A lovely gift! No other apps, just a book machine. It’s helped me to be a reading machine! I’m loving moody literary works, and fantasy about dark magic, and during my hurricane-induced headache I could only handle a short mystery about incredibly disappointing husbands.
Laura Eppinger 