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...

Elemental Magic

Yesterday the weather went sort of berserk. As the afternoon wore on, it got hotter and more humid, to the point I worried the dogs were going to expire. They were panting like they'd both just raced nonstop in the Iditarod...without the cooling influence of ice and snow. I wasn't faring any better. Just sitting perfectly still--the only movement a languid stretch of my hand for my drink and the flick of a finger to turn the page on my Kindle--had sweat running down my temples.

By early evening however, the intensity of the sun disappeared under an ominous, and very sinister looking darkness that began to creep over the blue skies. Seriously, it was like some kind of B-movie zombies-coming-over-the-hill scenario. It wasn't fluffy storm clouds either. No, this was a black wave that relentlessly covered the sky, blotting out the light, and considering these weren't really actual storm clouds, when the thunder and lightning started it was strange, and creepy.

Course, the dogs came unglued, even Max who has never been bothered by thunder before, and though the heat just kept rising--the last time I checked it had reached 94*--it was the humidity that was truly unbearable. And then came the violent winds.  This chaotic End of Days excitement went on for a couple hours and I swear I could feel the barometric pressure rising with each roll of thunder, every strike of lightning. It was like this terrible fever that burned hotter and hotter until something had to give.

And finally, with a crack of thunder that rattled the windows, it began to rain in a flash flood deluge that was epic. I couldn't hear over the drumming on the roof, the wind lashing around the corners of the house, the pounding of my heart.

It was totally magnificent. Earthy and elemental and ferociously wild. Rain poured down the windows in sheets, thunder boomed, lightning strobed across the valley. A truly breathtaking display of Nature at her most tumultuous.

Then, about half an hour later, the winds died, the rain dropped to random sprinkles, and the entire sky turned into a brilliant yellow-orange mist...

At last, the fever had broken.

I opened all the windows and doors, and let the cool air waft into the house, then I took the boys outside and while they lifted their heads and sniffed into the breeze, I closed my eyes and took in great, deep breaths of clean, fresh air...and magic at its most primeval...