Global Warming

What it was like today: 80 degrees. In frickin' APRIL, people. That's just uncalled for, in my opinion. Fifty-five degrees would be fine, 65 ideal, but 80 is just plain obnoxious in April. I fear what lies ahead in deep summer. Of course, maybe it will be 55 then, who knows? The weather everywhere seems screwy.

Last night I went to sleep after reading a book about Shackleton, not a good idea. I mean, the story is great, but life just keeps getting worse for these poor fellows, so I fall asleep with horrors in my head. Then we had a freakish storm in the middle of the night--wind, rain, thunder and lightning, all the trimmings. Had to rush around closing windows in a sleepy daze. I'm not particularly fond of the storms here. I miss the monsoons in Arizona. Those were so gorgeous. I never realized how good a seat I had in our own backyard until we moved away from there. We could sit on the porch swing out back and watch storms move across the whole valley. All that open sky, it was so amazing. Here I've got no vantage point to watch from, so when the storms come we only know from a weird color in the what sky there is out one window or another, and then, boom, it's on us like white on rice. And I get jumpy before it comes, all those charged ions or whatever making the air crackle, they make me (and all the farm animals) crabby. It feels almost claustrophobic, it's weird. I don't ever remember feeling like that when the storms were approaching in Arizona. Maybe I was just more ready for it there because I'd seen it coming.

It's beautiful outside now, if a little too warm. But everything is exploding, grass is on a rampage to get out of the ground. Our plum tree in the backyard looks like it might bloom tomorrow, while J. is gone. I'll have to get some pictures, it's always so amazing for a few days when the whole thing looks like a puffed up wedding dress, it's so white and fluffy.

So what is a good thing to read right before going to bed? If I read Cloth, Paper, Scissors, or some other crafty thing, then I get all inspired and awake. I always seem to have weird dreams, I just would like to not have disaster and anxiety dreams (nuclear winter, can't find the classroom, it's all the same...). If I could just have those dreams where I find people I'm looking for, or where I can fly--those are the best, even tho they are comical when I think about them later. There are several methods of take-off in these flying dreams: sometimes I flap my arms and take off straight up like a helicopter, sometimes I run down the street and jump up in the air like a plane taking off, and sometimes I just jump off a building or a high cliff and start gliding.