the mellow tigger's musings

The heat is a bit much. Normally, May is the month in Minneapolis where we're hoping to avoid any frost damage to the things we planted much too early because we hoped prematurely for the end to winter. This year, we keep getting heatwaves. Minneapolis is currently under a red flag warning about fire risk due to the dryness and strong winds. The temperature as I write this post in the evening is 30.5C/87F. We're expecting a few days of temperatures above 32C/90F. It's warm weather for May in Minneapolis.

Pictured here are the tulips and daffodils that are flowering in the front yard, in the middle of the raspberry patch that is beginning to leaf out. The flowers have been pretty for about 2 weeks already, so they won't last much longer.

I still haven't finished pulling out the grass in the front yard. I did succeed in mowing over the clover path in the back yard today during my lunch break from work. Yesterday, I got some carrots and tomatoes planted, from sprouts that I put in flats a few weeks ago.

I finally ordered the air conditioner that I located last year. It may not arrive until after this heat wave breaks, but at least I'll be ready for summer. For now, the thermal mass in the house is keeping downstairs cool. Upstairs in my bedroom, I open the windows at night to help some of the heat escape and get some more comfortable rest.

My temperature was only 37.2C/99.0F this morning. I wore long clothes in the morning to stay warm, because I felt cool still. By afternoon, I took off the long sleeve shirt. After work, I felt well enough to finally get outside and do some gardening.

I'm pretty sure I'm developing arthritis in both feet. The pain is similar but still in the developing stage. My left knee, though. I had to stop gardening because I kept grimacing and audibly "ow"-ing whenever I had to stand up. It's a sharp pain like arthritis, but it doesn't feel quite as concentrated and pointy as arthritis. Hopefully it's just a result of being unfit, and it will heal into good shape soon.

If it ends up being arthritis, then I'll probably have to sell my house. Yuck. I can't keep up the yard without good knees. I can deal with the rest of it, even the feet, I think. Knees, though... I don't want to be so old that I can't garden. I don't want to sell my house to somebody who'll just put in a grass yard. I want all of this effort to continue keeping pollinators around.

For now... good thoughts. Rest for now, not aggravating the knee. At least until tomorrow after work, when I'll I return to the garden to remove more grass that shouldn't be there. Today, I disturbed some large flower bulbs whose sprouts hadn't yet broken the surface. Good thoughts for them too. I hope I didn't damage anything important while trying to keep my yard in fair condition for city inspectors who drive around occasionally.

It fascinates me that this whole-body arthritis flare-up seemed triggered by that pneumococcal vaccine. I went searching just now, and this Arthritis Foundation webpage recommends getting the vaccine "... or when your arthritis isn't active". What's up with that?

I explained last year that one of the reasons I call 911 (if gunfire is within a 2-block radius here in my beloved warzone) is because emergency responders might arrive in time to save someone's life.

I've been pondering the question if I called 911 yesterday morning as usual, would the police have arrived a few seconds sooner than they did? And if police did arrive sooner, would those few seconds have made a difference in saving someone's life, just a short distance from my house?

I don't know.

When we fail our best nature, perhaps we don't really have options but to try doing better in the future. I know that living in the warzone for so long has changed me, and I probably don't know the full extent of that change. Next time, however, I will remind myself that being Mr. Crankypants at 5:55am and losing patience with the inhumanity of humanity is NOT a good reason to avoid calling 911 to report local gunfire.

After work today, I did some very minimal gardening. Here's another plant incomprehensibly deciding to flower very late in the season and during a strong drought. It's in my front yard, almost within arm's reach of the asphalt street.

Sometimes, foolish organisms do wonderful things, given the opportunity. It's precisely the magic that's worth watching in this weary world.