Is it getting close to autumn?

I don't know why, exactly, but I'm feeling more and more like summer is about to be over.

That's kind of ridiculous, considering the highs in the middle of this week in DFW will be in the 105° range. It obviously doesn't have much to do with the weather, though — for the record — let me just state that I'll take 105° over 110° any day. A high today of only 101° makes for kind of a refreshing break, to tell you the truth.

I realize there are places in the world where August really is the end of summer. July is the hottest month in a number of locales, and things start to cool down in August. However, I've never lived in those places, and the idea that August is cooler than anything at all is a completely foreign notion for me.

Maybe it feels like cool weather is coming because I went to San Antonio this past weekend, and we talked about the upcoming Fall Birthday Bash. It's our annual group birthday party, five family-and-close-friends birthdays between 8/31 and 9/18, get together every year, blahdy blah. And since it takes place in the fall (duh), it's around the time that school's starting, days are getting shorter, the weather is beginning to get a little cooler (or at least less blazing hot). So maybe that's why. Making plans for the Birthday Bash in just a few weeks is getting me in the frame of mind for fall.

Or it might be that, for once, I'm actually thinking ahead and on track to be ready for winter. I've got plans for shelters for the feral cats, instead of bumbling around in the freezing cold trying to kludge together something shortly after they needed to start using it. I'm getting estimates from plumbers for switching out our regular outdoor faucets for freeze-proof ones. (Yes, children, it's true. In cold climates they don't have to put Styrofoam covers over their garden faucets in the winter. True Minnesotans, for example, don't even know that some of us tromp around the house a few nights each year after watching the late news, jamming plastic bags and cereal boxes over our faucets. They'd probably be surprised.)

Maybe it's because it's hurricane season, and the Texas Gulf coast is usually a pretty primo target.

In any case, I have faith that the Earth is still moving through space, and the weather will eventually get cooler.

Really.

Sta-ressss!!

As in too much. Too, too much. I'm certainly creating some of it in my own mind (does anyone else do that?), but there are also external factors that are undeniably stressful.

Sooo…I think I'm going to grab some knitting and focus on it really, really hard. For you non-knitters, knitting is actually a fairly Zen thing, as long as it's not too difficult. What I have in mind won't be.

Time to relax…

Peace out, I believe is what the kids say.

What am I doing?

So what would you guess I'm doing right now?

1. Reading about the Dallas Stars, post-draft, new coaching staff & salary cap.
2. Reading a great Lifehacker article about spending money. 
3. Reading a great Lifehacker article about Facebook notifications.
4. Reading a great Lifehacker article about an app that reminds you to take a break, refocus (literally) and stand up occasionally while working at a computer.
5. Reading a great Lifehacker article about Foxfire (my browser of choice) and memory problems.
6. Wasting time with Lifehacker.
7. Learning interesting new things, including several that I don't absolutely need to know about right this minute.
8. Looking at a photo of the cutest little broccoli tree house.
9. Putting off starting the last few days of work on that book.

Right! [sigh] All of the above.

Hey! And look — now you're doing it, too!

30-second sarcasm break

"The Brink literally grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go until the final page." - film producer Don Phillips.
      "Film producer Don Phillips needs to look up the word literally." - Me.

A few days ago, I walked into Wildwood Grill by myself and the hostess asked if I was meeting "another couple." Huh? Granted, I'm large, but it should still be fairly obvious that I am one continuous person, not two smaller, identically-dressed people standing very close together. For one thing, I only have one head.

Thank you!

A Hockey Post: What Does the NHL Really Hate?

If you're a hockey fan, you know that the NHL has been all up in arms the last year or so about certain hits. More and more players are suffering serious injuries, especially concussions. The final straw, apparently, came this past season when St. Sid was knocked out of the Penguins' lineup for several months by a concussion. The league had been dithering about bad hits for a while, but obviously the situation could no longer be tolerated and they really started cracking down.


There are a few things that they get upset about:

• Blindside hits (where the player doesn't see it coming and has no chance to protect himself)

• Late hits (well after the target has passed the puck along to another player)

• Hits targeting the head (where, for example, the elbow comes up)

• Hits where the offender's skates leave the ice (i.e., they jump into it to give it more oomph).

Now take a look at Aaron Rome and Nathan Horton, in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. The one lying unconscious on the ice is Horton:

Guess how much trouble Rome is in.

June is for dabbling

Some people change things up in the summer because their schedules change. Teachers, for example, or the millions of households with children. They sleep late, do more things just for fun, have a more flexible schedule than during the school year. Since I'm not a teacher and don't have kids, that doesn't really apply to me. We go to baseball games instead of hockey. I lower the living room shades in the morning to keep out the heat. I don't have to take note of the time as I pull out of my driveway into the school zone. Other than that, there's not really much difference.

But this year I had an idea: I could change my schedule, like all those summer people do. I could let my time flow in a more fluid, less rigid way. I could dabble.

I do realize that saying I'm going to make my schedule more flexible is kind of a joke to most people. I've been self employed since 1992 and, apart from a few regular meetings, I pretty much decide what to do and when. (That includes housework, except for cooking dinner, which is constrained by needing to be ready at about dinnertime, and laundry, the priority of which is pretty much determined by one of us running out of underwear.) But the thing is, I tend to think of work, and cleaning, and hobbies, and many of the things that fill my time, in big chunks. I'll schedule a whole day or week to work on one project and nothing else. I'll start reading a novel whenever I have enough free time to finish the whole thing. And I'm embarrassed to admit that I put off chores, like mending, for example, because I somehow can't stop and take five minutes to do it right then. I'll put all the mending in one place and then, I think grandly, I'll set aside a few hours and get it all done.

I'm not just talking about the things I procrastinate on, but also about the things I regularly accomplish. These things take up big blocks on my calendar, and therefore become big and burdensome in my mind. Somewhere along the line I developed this ant mentality (that's ant as opposed to grasshopper) that forces me to keep at things. Flitting from task to task is bad; stay focused, keep your nose to the grindstone, slow and steady wins the race. To do otherwise is…well, it's just wrong.

But last week, on May 30th, to be exact, it occurred to me that what I longed to do that day was dabble. I wanted to spend my time at different things, not one thing, perhaps even in rapid succession. Work at my desk for a hour or two, then go vacuum. Flip through one magazine, then send some emails and make some appointments. Reconcile one bank statement, then go repair a torn pocket (there's that mending again).

I'm not talking about goofing off. This dabbling will involve all the things I should be getting done. It's not that I won't be working, or won't be working hard. I'll just be doing it grasshopper-style, carefree and breezy, even the stuff I take very seriously.

Maybe I'm reacting to trying to be over-organized. Whatever. In any case, June is for dabbling. And we'll see how it goes after that.

And how's your summer shaping up?

On this day in history…

• Johnny Weissmuller was born. (He was Tarzan.)
• So were Dana Carvey, Stacy Keach, Jerry Mathers, Sally Kellerman & the Marquis de Sade. (Well, everybody has a birthday, after all.)
• Queen Elizabeth II was crowned.
• Timothy McVeigh was found guilty of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168.
• Lou Gehrig died. So did Leslie Howard (Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind).
• The Tiananmen Square protest happened. (I've been to Tiananmen Square. It's huge, the largest city square in the world—444,000 square meters. And there's that big honkin' portrait of Mao at the gate to the Forbidden City.)

My admirable father-in-law, Joe, was born on June 1st, which means his birthday was yesterday. Which means we really should have called him last night. Oops. And my ex-step-niece, the also admirable Rebekah, has a birthday tomorrow. So, really, I'm not sure why I even brought it up today.

The month is bringing some changes for me, personally, though. I'm trying out a different approach. More about that later. (Yeah, I know, I keep saying that. But I'm in SUP [Specific Use Permit] hell right now, and I have to go stand in front of a few desks today to get applications, forms, letters and other paperwork done so it can go before the Planning & Zoning Board at their next meeting. Yawn? You have no idea.)

It'll get better. Promise!