June 23

It has been a few days but then nothing much has happened. Things here just chug along their normal path--a bit of reading, a bit of needlework, a bit of necessary shopping when we get a list long enough to make the trip worthwhile. Oh, yes--one bit of bother: our freezer cut out yesterday sometime early in the morning. We discovered the problem when we returned from shopping and had to put some items in the freezer and discovered it was quickly defrosting. I moved most of the meat (the most expensive items there) into our small freezer on the refrigerator and mom tried at first to get a repairman but that was proving difficult. The only one she could actually talk to only deals with commercial freezers but was kind enough to give us a number for someone who might be able to help. We remembered we got ours from Best Buy and had a service insurance with them. The woman on the phone was helpful but getting their repairmen were booked and everything would have been much by the time he could fix the freezer or tell us it couldn't be fixed. What we finally did was purchase another from the same manufacturer with the same capacity which will be delivered Friday. We were resigned to losing the vegetables and fruit but--surprisingly the damned thing kicked back to life and started working again. We talked about cancelling the new one but decided that going ahead with the replacement was probably the better option. The old freezer is about 10 years old, the model has been discontinued and we simply can't be sure it won't cut out again. We have no idea why it cut out since there was no power failure or blown fuse and the plug was tight. And we have no idea why it started running again. Damn machines!! But doing without them is almost unthinkable nowadays.

We are in the middle of an unusual cool spell. The temps for the last couple of days have been a bit below normal. We have also had several nights with hard monsoonal type rains. Some of the smaller plants on the patio were a bit beaten down but they have since righted themselves. All the plants seem to like the respite from the heat of only a bit more than a week ago. Watching the heatwave in the west and south and the worsening drought is frightening. The Guardian posted this story with some interesting comments by various climate scientist. One, who is in Utah were the temps reached 107*, described co-workers' computers shutting down from the heat and people leaving work early. One comment this morning about the Pacific Northwest mentioned that many inhabitants don't have air-conditioning not having needed it before. Now the temps will be high enough to be life threatening.

This little piece comes courtesy of Naked Capitalism. Every few months we get a flyer in our mail box for something called "Neighbors". I looked into it when we got the first flyer and decided not to respond and haven't to any since. It touted itself a network of neighbors looking out for each other. I wonder now if it is associated with this push by Amazon to tie into its subscribers' wifi networks to siphon off bandwidth. A long time ago we decided we definitely don't want anything to do with the so-called "Internet of Things". No Siri, no Ring, no connected refrigerator telling us we are low on milk. And as if I needed any encouragement to resist the movement to a more networked existence, there is this piece concerning another idea that seemed like a good idea until abnormal weather strikes. Imagine a place where you accept an offer of a cut in your electric rates if the utility company can tie into your "smart" thermostat and reset your settings when they feel it is necessary--for them not necessarily for you. Oh you don't have to imagine such a place--its called "Texas."