07/14/2016

Lawdamighty, it's hot. It's hot here, it's hot there, it's hot everywhere it seems. Santa Fe has already been through a period of 90-plus temperatures last month—a week to ten days of that kind of heat is pretty typical in any given year—but now the heat is on once again. It's been 90-ish for the past week and it seems that it will remain as such for another week or so. This in itself is rather exceptional but in concert with this heat wave the summer monsoonal rains have thus far failed to materialize. Last year the afternoon rainstorms began cranking up right on schedule at the beginning of July but as I look out the windows of the blessedly cool Inky Aerie this blazing afternoon there is literally not a cloud in sight. The Weather.com app on my iPhone reports the current humidity at 5%. Impressively desiccative.
07/08/2016

  A thousand pardons are begged of you, Gentle Reader(s), for the regrettable paucity of postage as of late. The usual distractions of travel, beisbol, work, beisbol and more travel have been in play with the addition of summertime bicycular activities, the inevitable result being that time spent wracking of the brain and pounding of the keys has suffered. Back in early June I was getting ready to add my two centimes worth of sentiment regarding the passing of the great Muhammad Ali when events such as the horrific massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the mind boggling Brexit vote across the pond came crashing down. Next thing you know you're wallowing about in a bewildering swampy slosh of WTFs?? and OMGs!! for which there are no answers and no easy explanations. A bit overwhelming. I attended the Orlando vigil on the Santa Fe Plaza on Monday the 13th, presided over by our estimable Mayor Javier Gonzales and I felt that it did some good. It was a display of solidarity and community in the face of hate and intolerance—a display only, perhaps, but better than doing nothing at all.