shrift, congrats on the new job! Exciting stuff.

Penny got spayed Thursday and we have to survive the puppy cone for the next 2 weeks. Poor girl cannot deal.

I highly recommend these instead of the cone [link]

Much less traumatic for you, the dog, and the walls.

Poor Penny.

Today's forecast called for 95F with plenty of humidity (as does the next week--ugh), so when I woke up before six I just got started with my day. I've walked the cat, watered the garden, grocery shopped, returned my library books, vacuumed, made raspberry syrup for a champagne whiskey punch I'm making for some people tomorrow, and read a goodly part of this month's book group book (The Last Chinese Chef). OK, that last bit didn't require anything heat or outdoors related. Still, I feel like I can spend the next hour watching the last bit of Return of the King with minimal angst.

That Kong not-a-cone-of-shame thing is nifty! I had no idea that existed.

Burrell, if you hadn't said "oops" I'd've thought you did it on purpose.

Took Walter for a walk, letting him set the pace and, to a large extent, the route and it ended up lasting over an hour. Well, some of that time was me buying an iced chai on the way back, but not much. Wore my Chacos and a gauze dress because I expected it to be hot but it was actually lovely. I am really not used to those sandals anymore, I kept kicking myself in the ankle and the straps cut up my skin a little. Preventive band-aids next time.

Then I fell down the rabbit hole of fiddling with my spreadsheets for tracking my workout data and forgot to eat lunch...but my spreadsheets are really coming together!

Ugh, poor Franny. We have just about given up on her being healthy enough to go to sailing camp on Monday as planned and are now just hoping to avoid needing a chest x-ray on Monday to confirm or rule out pneumonia. But things are moving in the right direction today. Temp hasn't moved above 99.5. Yet.

Knock wood

Poor Isaac is so bored he's about to scream, but he gets to go with me to a party later on this evening, so that's good.

It occurs to me that I prepare for a heat wave the same way I prepare for a blizzard. Lay in provisions, seal the windows and doors, plan on not leaving the house.

That "quick grocery run" turned out to involve two stores and an hour more than I planned on, but I survived! I'm home and showered and eating yogurt and blueberries like an Adult (no capes!), and hopefully I won't have to go outside during the day for the next week. Good grief, I'm exhausted. The heat just sucks away all my energy.

It's hot as hell here, and we're headed to the Cheese Ball later, so I'm taking a nice cold bottle of chardonnay with my pesto gouda. (Even though drinking any alcohol -- even chilled wine or cold beer -- makes me vasodilate and get all flushed. Maybe I can just stick the whole bottle of wine down the front of my dress.)

Oddly, as they are sort of never-met, across-the-country twins, Casper has had a bad cold for 2 weeks now and seemed feverish to me this afternoon, and we're talking about taking her to the doctor on Monday if her cough doesn't clear up. Since she had walking pneumonia at 3, we worry about that.

Oh no flea, not Casper too! It's a bummer way to start the summer, that's for sure.

Poor sick kids!