Fun in the heat

LG and I wanted to go for walk outside but weare enjoying our annual heat wave and neither of us love to sweat, so we met at Crystal Springs at 7:30 AM.  birds all over!  we saw a kingfisher! Lots of ducks and geese, even a great blue heron preening himself on a log.  He was so close I could have hit him with a spitball. Amidst the shadows, in the cool of the morning, it was divinely serene.  We walked between sleeping ducks that didn't turn a feather at our presence.  I was sorely tempted to snatch one up, just because I could,but even my inner three year old knew that it would be wrong to upset the peace of the morning.  We strolled the damp gravel paths between the rhododendrons, listening to the happy little birds, and watching the fat squirrels.  One gymnastic female ran through the leaves right over our heads, vaulting from twig to twig in fine olympic fashion.  We gave her an 9 for degree of difficulty, but only an 8  for execution, since she didn't stick her landing.  Then we went to a nearby independently run coffee shop and split a bagel with hummus and laughed raucously as a pair of young crows for almost an hour.  Lordy, I LOVE being retired.

When I got home, I started on a challenge we have set one another.  LG had some fabric scraps from a friend who used to make costumes.   We pulled a selection of fabrics, then cut each one in half.  We are going to make crazy quilts and compare them.  I started,fell into the zone and hours later came back to Mundania with a tea cozy and a wall-hanging/catmat/small flat thing.  Pictures tomorrow.  I have been wanting to embroider lately, and these are no where near sufficiently embellished. Beads, buttons, lace!  Bits of ribbons! Broken earrings?  Maybe.  And I haven't used up al the scraps yet.

Also,I am listening to a series of books that DH picked up and they are totally a shameful indulgence.  Monster Killers International is the first book in the series.  It starts with the protagonist, an accountant, working late one night and discovering that his boss is a werewolf. In self-defense, our hero kills the creature. The government debriefs him, telling him that no one can know there are really real monsters out there.  He is a mass of scars, and has no job and can't tell anyone why.  Then MHI (Monster Hunters International) recruits him, and things get weird.  Zombies, demons, vampires, the Old Ones, Evil from beyond our world, horrible humor (a federal agent, fighting off werewolves, says, "Sit, werewolf! and shoots its head off with silver bullets, then smiles and says, "Good werewolf.") Plus love and bonding under stress- it's like every action-packed creature feature you ever saw, all mashed together. No literary merit whatsoever and as addicting as a giant bag of kettle corn. It's like a comic book for my ears and I am having a BALL!