Today, summer felt autumn breathing down its neck, so it gave us a classic summer day to remind us that it’s still August: hot and sunny, but breezy enough to keep the heat from turning oppressive. The cicadas called loud and desperately to each other. If you like summer, this would have been your day.
I spent much of the workday fighting small fires; apps that suddenly didn’t work quite right, people to call, etc. Nothing exciting or noteworthy, but that’s good too. Exciting emergencies are great sources of worry, stresss, and strain.
I went to the grocery store and bought no groceries. While standing in line on previous trips, I’d noticed a digital photo processing kiosk at one end of the store, and wanted to try it. I’ve been taking pictures of my garden every month, to put in my garden journal for reference, so last week I burned a CD of the pictures and dropped it in my laptop bag.
So there I was, standing in front of the Kodak Picture CD Kiosk. I cringed inwardly; I’ve used enough of these horribly designed public kiosks that I steeled myself to navigate through a
So I made my order using the “Ready In Minutes!” option. However, I discovered that this means that each picture prints in about one minute, so I had to stand there for twenty minutes while each photo dropped in a little tray in the front. Booooring, but I got my photos for $.40 each. Not bad, but I think next time I’ll choose
Anyvay, I got my pictures, and this got me in the mood to garden. I came home and straightaway used the rest of my mulch in the front yard, mowed both the front and back yards, and trimmed back a bush that was overhanging a neighbor’s yard. As I did so, a boy who just moved in next door peeked his head over the fence and said, “Nice backyard!’ “Thanks,” I called back, and he grinned and ran back inside. That just about made my evening.
Came back inside, nuked some frozen lasagna, and went upstairs to work on Otherspace. Saalon chose tonight to assemble shots for the first time, so I talked him through my process. Unfortunately, the shots just weren’t ready yet, so he couldn’t get very far. I agreed to take them back to the animators, while he did some experimenting and looked into local anime conventions that we can attend.
And that’s a wonderful situation: Saalon’s making our convention arrangements, which is a load off my mind. He can keep up with such things better than I.
Then I paid a few bills (which is another story, but a boring one that I’ll not detail here), browsed a few online comics, and climbed into bed. And here I am, and now I’m going to try to get some sleep.
Summer’s here, but autumn is near.