Dreams, Dogs and the Decade Plan

I'm sure everyone is pretty tired of the pissing and moaning I've been doing about the frigging, endless, mind-blowing heat wave that has overcome the western states this Summer, so I will say no more about it.  First, because whingeing changes nothing, second because I'm even boring myself.  If, however, I lose days between posts?  Then you'll understand that I've been overpowered by the sheer force of the inferno pouring from the Gates of Hell and couldn't sit at the computer to write.

My dreams of late have been filled with visions of snow and polar ice caps and blizzards that rage outside log cabin walls.  And for just a moment--before I wake sweaty and headachy with the heat--I can feel the chill, see the beauty in the flakes as they swirl, revel in a sky laden with a frigid white cold instead of a burning yellow fever.

Somehow I have to get through August, and probably most of September, before there is a hope of taking a breath of fresh, cool air; of waking up one morning and knowing I survived the blistering torture of an extremely hot Summer.

I chant, this too shall pass, and try to believe it...

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Last night, or I guess really in the early hours of this morning, Max woke me by crawling up my chest, his whole body trembling as he squished against me.  I couldn't figure out what was going on, until I heard the deep, long rumble of thunder in the distance.  And really, I mean long.  Each rumble seemed to go on and on, far beyond a normal roll.  I got up and pulled back the bedroom drapes...and couldn't believe I was hearing an endless barrage of thunder in a cloudless, star-filled night.  Is that even possible?  Don't there have to be clouds, or some kind of obvious, visible signs of a storm? 

Well, unless I was sleepwalking/dreaming, I was listening to rolls of thunder in a clear sky.  And since Max, usually not bothered by fireworks or thunder, had turned into a quivering mass of doggy distraughtness, it was pretty apparent I wasn't dreaming.  It took about an hour for the "storm" to pass, then another half hour or so until he settled down.  Course, by that time I'm wide awake and too bloody hot, so after tossing and turning for another hour, I just got up.  Whatever.

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This is my birthday week.  I'm on the Decade Plan these days, so this birthday doesn't really count as it's in the middle of a decade.  I had a great chat with a dear friend in Edinburgh yesterday, and have gotten some wonderful cards from other friends and family over the week, but still.  I don't find much celebration in getting older.  Now, if I were Benjamin Button and started to get younger, well, that would be cause for drinks all 'round, no doubt.  But birthdays, like some other holidays, are more important for the kids; milestone years, like that little boy at the store the other day who had just turned seven.

Milestones for me:  My first bicycle at eight, first watch at ten, driver's license at sixteen, graduation just before I turned eighteen, hallelujah I can legally drink at twenty-one, then how the hell could I be thirty?  After that?  Pretty much a blur.  I had some great birthdays in that blur, don't get me wrong, but once beyond those great milestone moments, I'm not so eager to watch the birthdays flit by like fireflies.

Ah well.  There's no stopping the inexorability of time; it passes whether we fight or accept, wish or want.

Even so.  I'm sticking to my Decade Plan...