Another Hot Day In Virginia

Casual Tuesday

Halle Ready

Coco and I are up at 6:30, to a warm and partly cloudy morning.  It's 68º out, the high will be near 90º again then start to cool over the next couple of days, a more enjoyable 70's.  I was just thinking how I hardly paid attention to the weather until five years ago when I retired.  Perhaps I was too busy teaching or living on a lake makes you much more cognizant of weather, with its broad vistas and lake surface.  Or there's nothing else to do in the morning but talk about weather because I am retired. Maybe all three.

Rhododendrons

Yesterday was a good day to stay in the air conditioned house because of the heat and humidity so we did not venture out unless need be.  The girls are off to school each morning at 7:35 and 8:40 respectively.  Hayden takes a bus and Halle is driven, this week, by a friend of Jill's so I don't have to get up off my couch.  Around 9:00, however, I put on my walking shoes and took Coco out in the morning heat for a walk.  It was longer than I intended because I walked down the wrong street, thinking it led back to Jill's but it didn't, so I had to backtrack.  By the time I got home, forty five minutes later, I was sweaty and Coco was parched, racing to his water bowl.  At least he doesn't have anything to do the rest of the day except sleep on the couch, occasionally get up to eat or drink or chase a squirrel, the good dog life I suppose.  I am becoming more and more like him.

Evie spent the day working on the girls rooms, making some kitchen curtains for Jill.  Halle loves having Evie help her with reorganizing her room, and together they have made a collage of photographs from the past five or six years and they are now on a wall in her room.  She is really excited about it and when she got home from school, she hardly said hi but went straight up to her room to check it out.

The only major occurrence yesterday was our sitting down to watch the last episode of Mad Men, anxiously awaited by millions of viewers.  It tied to together the lives of various characters, most ending up happy at the moment, Peggy and Rodger with a spouse, Pete back with his wife, Joan starting a company on her own,  with the exception of Don's ex wife Betty, dying of lung cancer but still smoking, and Don, himself, who has struggled for six years with how to live his life, with finding meaning, despite the fact that he's been a successful ad man, making millions.  He ends up at a Californian retreat, probably the Esalen Institute, listening to a yogi mantra, 'a new day, new ideas, a new you', and chanting OM, seemingly 'empty and marvelous,' a smile on his face. Dan Draper is Moi!

And then the iconic 1971 Coke commercial plays, complicating the ending.

Does Don Have A Hippie Revelation Or Advertising Brainstorm