Back to the weather

The humidity has dropped again, bringing with it easier breathing. The rain ended, too, so the house is again open. Honeysuckle and roses scent the air. Everything looks green and happy, even as the clouds pile up with the threat of thunderstorms later.

As lovely as it is, I'm still not looking forward to the rest of today, or even the rest of the week. We're headed out later to do grocery shopping for my sweetheart's dad. He's nearly 89 and still lives alone, although he doesn't drive. We get his groceries, and later this week will take him to the cemetery to put flowers on his wife's grave since it's her birthday.

In between, of course, we still have stuff of our own to do. The lawn needs to be mowed, plants transplanted to the newly turned garden beds, and bunches of other things that require mostly time and a little patience. To top it off, on Saturday, we're heading to Wilmington for the biweekly aggravation fest. With Nascar in Dover, traffic will triple, making the drive miserable since there are no easy shortcuts, only two-lane roads that wind through itty-bitty one stop sign towns.

The company will be good, though, and if we get sufficiently bored, the iPod is full of tunes and books to distract us.

Tourist season begins

This weekend is the official start of tourist season in our neck of the woods. We live 30 minutes east of an Atlantic beach resort. Well, it's a 30 minute drive during part of the year.

The state completed a bypass around our town a few years ago to reduce the traffic volume through town. It helps, but traffic is still a pain, and we frequently go out of the way to use an intersection with a light so we can get where we're going in a reasonable amount of time.

The tourists bring with them increased trash on the road, jacked up gas prices on the main arteries, and gross stupidity at the wheel. They also bring no manners, loud children, and unending complaints. When we travel, we keep our opinion of tourists in mind and do our best not to be like them.

With the start of summer also comes increased humidity. That makes it harder to breathe. As much as we love the afternoon thunderstorms that are part of living here, their approach triggers the release of mold spores, which also make breathing labored. To keep the electric bill down, we'll make do with fans as long as possible, but I'm putting on my to do list for this week to get the air conditioners ready to use.

Another one of those days

Today, we had to go out. I'm getting to the point where I hate to leave the house because no matter where we go, we are assaulted by other people's perfumes. We've become resigned to wearing the masks whenever we go out, and try to remember to keep them with us.

The first stop was my sweetheart's back doctor. The man has great hands and a wonderful sense of humor. He also has a newly paved parking lot that still reeks. Once we got inside, things went downhill as three women in a row came in, each of them smelling progressively stronger. We hacked. I went outside for a minute and came back in to find my sweetheart moved to the other end of the waiting area. We hacked some more and took cough syrup before the doctor called us in. Then we had to struggle through the odor cloud to leave.

From there, we went to the grocery store, where it seemed that every overly perfumed woman in the place was tailing us. No matter where we went, they appeared moments later. No, we weren't going aisle by aisle. We had a short list, and went from vegetables to the deli to the checkout. Heck, I even left my sweetie at the deli and went to check something out, and got stench commandoed while I was gone and when I returned.

Cutting the grass - a couple acres' worth - when we got home was a breeze compared to being out in the public. We do more and more of our shopping on the internet, and look forward to the day we can do it all. Anything to stay away from the overly perfumed, inconsiderate horde.