June 14--almost half past the month.

I really don't know where the time goes. I think part of our sense of time speeding by involves our sleeping patterns. We go to bed very early, usually by 8pm. That means that by 2 or 3 am we are wake up naturally. We might doze in our recliners for another hour but we start on the new about 4am and by 6 or 7 we turn off the TV having already dealt with e-mail, played a bit, and sworn at the idiots who take up air time speculating about the latest happening. By 9am we have had breakfast, washed the dishes, got the cats settled, and ourselves dressed. I took about half an hour before we turned off the TV to water the gardens. It would be a shame to lose all that nice color just because I was too lazy to water the plants.

Axios What's Next had a piece on "The Great Resignations" this morning. I hope this provides the link. Evidently a fair number of CEOs are finding a lot of their employees either aren't coming back at all or will quit if the businesses insist on returning to full time at the office. The reactions run the table: full time in office, full time remote, a mix and some who have decided to pursue a career change. What ever the "new normal" is it won't be the "old normal."

June 15--damn! six months of this year almost gone!

Second day of respite from the heat but no rain. The news last night said we are way behind on rainfall and the meteorologists didn't see any for a while. You know that the drought in the west is getting serious when our local news (out of Chicago) has a feature on it. We are still listed as abnormally dry but the areas of moderate and severe drought seem to be spreading our way.

We did our regular shopping today--regular in that it was mainly replacing groceries that we were out of or low on. It has become somewhat irregular as to timing. Anyway, the trip to the big box market (not Target or Walmart) we patronize showed that the pandemic is loosening its grip on us. We didn't wear masks because there weren't that many other people. Our rule is that if there is an unexpected crowd we put on our masks. I saw only three customers with masks and two of them were children too young yet to get the shots. None of the employees were masked and those at the check out  were ecstatic to not have to wear them anymore. The only acknowledgement of the pandemic was the request on the intercom that the store didn't require masks for vaccinated customers but requested those who weren't to wear masks.

I Just found this at Crooks&Liars. Although it seems plausible given the history of grift swirling around the Former Guy and his whole family, it seems plausible. But before before getting too disgusted I decided to check it out at Snopes. Evidently it is fake. Other sites are also calling it out. I think it is so sad that the rumor a scam, any scam at all, connected with Former Guy and his minions is so easily believed.

John Beckett has a piece that pushes most of the buttons asking "why do so many of us want to run away?"