Hot!

It was great day of having fun and getting things done: I mowed the lawn, trimmed the collards, cleaned the basement, and went to the festival across the street. I'm tired and a little sore--but what a difference from last year when a few hours' worked rehabbing the garage left me feeling like I'd been run over. Three weeks' chiropractic care, yoga and B. coagulans turned things around. I also started sitting ankle-on-knee more, something I read at Sal Di Stefano's site. He's a personal trainer that Dr. Davis had on the Zoom meeting this week. It seems to help. 

Since it's too hot and humid now to sleep well, and I'm too environmentally conscious (read: cheap) to set the air conditioner lower, I sleep in the basement. After five years' living here, the basement accumulated enough crud and clutter to need a good cleaning. I'd put it off for weeks because cleaning and decluttering distresses me more than surgery or a root canal. My mother (a hoarder) used to get mad at me if I tried to clean up and get mad at me if I didn't. Plus, all the paint cans reminded me of my mad, stressful dash to move here, and trying to deal with the paint cans that couldn't simply be thrown out. 

So I took my laptop downstairs, created a document on my Google drive, and listed all the paint colors, brands, finishes and rooms they went with so I'll have the information after I take the old paint to Tox Drop in a few weeks. I tossed some stuff and reorganized the rest. Then I vacuumed--even the walls had to be vacuumed to get rid of the sawdust from my garage rehab project. I moved the bed frame, dragged the mattress downstairs, took the papasan chair and my dog's bed down, set up my tactical nightstand, and called it a day. 

Festival in 2019.

I was hungry and there was a festival across the street. I figured getting some nachos (which I do about once a year) would be good positive reinforcement for taking on the basement. It felt strange to go somewhere without a mask. (The festival was all outdoors and there's no outdoor mask mandate here.) Oddly, the dozen or so people with masks all looked like minors or very young adults. A few people past that age were wearing masks under their chin. Did I mention it's hot and humid here--and it's barely June? None of the grown-ups pulled up their mask at any point as far as I could tell--it was just too hot even at dinner time. Same thing at McDonald's when I got a sundae (hey, it was hot and I was still hungry). The kitchen employees had their masks down. I've worked in a restaurant kitchen: they're hot. 

Not that people are big on masking outdoors when it isn't hot--fans at the Indy 500 last weekend were mostly barefaced. But summer will probably force the few holdouts to unmask outdoors. We can look at Marion County coronavirus stats next week, but I doubt they'll show any effect, just as Thanksgiving and Christmas didn't. 

Things are getting back to normal around here. I'm puttering around the house and yard like my old self. I enjoyed live music today. Job opportunities are so hot that the unemployed no longer receive federal benefits and have to prove they're looking for work to collect state benefits. Virus variants? Over half the samples tested have a variant, mostly the one from Kent. None of the known variants is spread easily outside. So get outside--"it's important for mental health, it's important for physical health, it's important at just about every level possible." 

It's also easier to put up with heat when you're outside--and right now, it's...