Nice and Cool

 The weather temps dropped to nice and cool today, instead of the previously forecast upper 80's to low 90's.  It was a shock to hear on the news that at least 63 people died in the heat in Oregon.  These were people found dead.  Many were seniors who lived alone and had no AC and some--not even a fan.  They figure the death toll will rise, as the old and alone, who had nothing to combat the heat, are finally discovered.  Of those who died, most were seniors, but there was a nursery worker found dead in the fields, and two homeless folk in Bend died of the heat.

I thought the most telling visual of the heat wave was of water.  Water rushing across roads, forcing campground and road closures, near Mount Hood.  This was because of rapid melt off of mountain snow.  That was our money in the bank for the rest of the summer rushing across those roads.

It was cloudy all day.  For a brief time, I thought something terrible might happen, like a tornado.  It became deathly quiet this afternoon, and very humid.  But no dark greenish tinged clouds formed, like when the last tornado came through, although that one hit to the north of me.

I'd been waiting and hoping I'd get a call from the state, that I'd won the vaccine lottery.  They have one million dollar prize, then each county has a $10k prize.  The alleged drawing was four days ago.  

 I was very suspicious about a vaccine lottery though.  How would they actually pull off a lottery and enter only those who have been vaccinated and how in the world would they even get that info, along with most recent cell number?   I figured they couldn't and would draw on only those whose information they could find easily and the rest would be left out.

I have no faith in the state.

I will need those winnings, darn it, to pay the high electric bill I'll have for running the AC constantly, plus the portable AC in the garage cat room to keep the cats alive. And the water bill, which is sky high anyhow, but will really be high next month.  I tried to keep a few plants alive.

Yesterday I went to the lake for a few hours with my kayak.  I think the reservoir level will drop fast and so I better get up there as much as I can before that happens.  That's my reasoning.  I paddled a long way.  Now and then, I found a beach, got out of the kayak and pushed it up onto a log or the gravel, whatever I could, and, leaving it there, swam out into the lake.  The water is too warm, really.   I thought in another couple weeks it'll be growing really bad things.  

Fires have broken out, in the state and down at the border with California around Lake Shasta.  Portland, Bend and maybe a few other towns have banned fireworks.   Good for them.  Common sense would tell a person don't even light a match outside, let alone shoot off a firework.   

People keep calling me wanting me to take their cats.  Today a Sweet Home woman left a message she wanted me to take away a wild mom and her three kittens.  Something like that.  She went on to say she knew my message stated I was on break for the summer but could I call her to confirm that.  Yeah right, like I"m going to do that.  No I am not.

Besides the garage being far too hot to even recuperate a cat overnight, in the summer people try all sorts of things to get me to take on their kittens.  Look, get those cats fixed before they have kittens.   I mean, come on, use that brain!  So that's another reason I often take the summer off, to avoid the calls from people wanting me to take on a zillion kittens.   

My brother in Idaho is going through a heat wave now, he says.

This weekend the forecast has been downgraded from mid 90's to upper 80's.  Plenty hot.  Just fine in fact.