It's too HOT!

Whew! It is hot and dry, too hot and way too dry!
The grass is brown, the trees are dropping their
leaves, our fish pond is only half full. The fish
are really hungry because the pool is warm and the
aerator is keeping the oxygen level high. No more
water is entering the pool. Or almost none. Mullin's
well is still putting in a gallon every so often, enough
to keep the papyrus wet. We were up last night at
4 AM and it was still 75 outside and inside, at least
upstairs. Robert turned the fans back on. It was
hard to believe that on Friday morning Ariel was
freezing because it was so cold in our living room.
We'd cooled it down to about 66 in hopes it would
not warm up too much during the day. The temperature
reached 103 on our front porch, but the lower part
of the house cool, about 72 degrees by supper.

On Wednesday we had an Obama party at our house. I
had prepared for it by getting lots of cold drinks
and cookies and by studying the web site so I would
be able to answer questions. The campaign was
sending Alex to host the meeting so I assumed he'd
probably answer most questions, but it wouldn't hurt
to be informed as much as I could be. I was
disappointed when only ten people showed up, but
later relieved. Alex showed a short movie of Obama
making a speech in South Carolina in 2007. It
was a ho hum. He at the start spent 10 minutes
telling us about himself, where he was born, when
he moved to Boulder, where he was going to college,
and on and on. It didn't seem very relevant, but
he is young and eager..After the bio and the movie
he went on to say how much the campaign needed
volunteers and enumerated the many ways one might
volunteer. That was good. Then Julie asked a
question about an issue (health care perhaps). And
Alex announced "we don't discuss issues at these
house parties because sometimes people get into
arguments and the host losings control, so we just
don't do it." I was so shocked I was speechless.
Within minutes everyone got up and left.

I have since e-mailed Alex and asked for his supervisor's
e-mail so I could protest their policy and explained
in detail to Alex how badly I felt about the meeting and
that I had e-mailed apologies to people who had come.
We had missed such a good opportunity to win over the
former Hillary supporters and we had missed it. I also
explained to him that Hillary supporters didn't have to
vote for McCain if they didn't want to vote for Obama;
they might vote Green or Libertarian, etc.

I'm still upset that I sponsored such a poor meeting.

Thursday noon the Ochs' came for lunch. They don't
like to drive at night and restaurant lunches don't
give us enough time to talk so we had "dinner" at
noon. I had a crab/shrimp casserole in the freezer
which I had taken out on Wednesday and just warmed
up. We also had corn-on-the-cob from my Organic
box and salad, also from my organic box. It was
an easy lunch to fix and quite tasty. I had
planned to bake a cake, for it was Alice's
birthday, but it was too hot! I served ice cream
and fresh peaches, also from the box, with cookies.
We had a good time and I am sure they did too. They
headed home about 4 PM.

Yesterday we picked up Ariel at 8 AM and brought her
up here. She had had a tooth pulled the day before
so hadn't eaten supper or breakfast for fear it would
hurt. She wrapped up in a blanket because She was
cold and I fed her a glass of milk and jello. She
was still hungry so I made her a "chocolate Milkshake."
This consisted of milk, chocolate syrup and 2 eggs
from EggBeaters carton. She demolished that in
no time. I figured that would hold her for a while.
Shortly thereafter I found her put away pistachios
at a great rate and pointed out that if she could
eat them she could eat anything. I think she had
forgotten her pulled tooth by then. In any case
she ate pizza and fresh peaches for lunch in
large enough quantities that I had no fear that
she would starve.

Ariel and I had planned to go to Obama headquarters
to see if they had a job to do that we could do
together, but we got so involved in making little
people to live in her doll house that it was
4 o'clock before we knew it and had to rush to
town. I bought her a "hoodie" at REI to keep
at our house because she is so often cold for
the first hour or so and this winter I expect
we'll not be keeping the house as warm as we
have in the past. Then off to Target to buy
some stuff to work on next Friday and finally
to the pet store where Carl was to pick her
up.

It's been an interesting week, but I'm enjoying
a quiet day today.