01 July 2025

 

 

It is very hot. We get up very early, pick the raspberries and the blueberries, dig up the last potatoes, fill the bird bath and are greeted by yet another of the Tigridia blossoms that will last for that day. Later when it gets hot and hotter, the hover flies will crowd it, drunk on pollen.

After breakfast on the patio, we move indoors, shut all windows and let down the blinds and stay in the cool old house until sunset, hoping for a cool breeze by then, fresh enough to sleep well beside a wide open window. If not, we move down into the basement for the night. One of us will wake in the early hours when the birds start and open up all windows. 

My brother tells me that in the years to come, this summer will be remembered for being the coldest in history.  

My sister complains that the heat is keeping her from being outdoors, now, in summer, and that it's not fair.

My nephew, a marine biologist, shrugs and says, we made this mess, we better adjust. 

I am glad I don't have to go to work anymore. Instead, I have an appointment late afternoon with outside temps expected to be 40C in a building that most definitely has no airconditioning. I just fixed a thick neckband to my wide straw hat so I can tie it below my chin and it won't blow off when I cycle there. 

For a while we lived on the edge of the Thar desert in India,  R reminds me as he hands me a flask of water to bring along.

I tried to listen to the Peter Thiel interview in the New York Times but gave up, not sure what hit me. seriously, these tech bros, I get memory flashes all the way back to early childhood psychology lectures, John Bowlby's rhesus monkeys and their hopeless search for attachment, acceptance, empathy.

 

In contrast, this sounds like a breath of fresh air in tech sis speak: