The heatwave broke, yesterday, leaving me with a slightly higher tolerance for the summer’s warmth. I didn’t flinch when the temperature rose to 83 in the house today. It’s nothing to me now.

The sky today has been mostly gray, thick clouds parting to reveal a diaphanous, silvery powder blue in places. Finally the clouds shrink to gray puffs against that blue this afternoon. A gust of wind now and then sets everything in motion, tumbling through wind chimes.

I always feel better once the first heat wave of summer passes, with a new higher range of personal comfort, and the assurance that I can make it through to autumn. Autumn here begins late. We always used to spend the first weeks of school with sweaty palms and skin sticking to the varnished chairs and desks. Around Halloween, the air finally cools enough for sweaters at night, at the same time kids dress up to make their ghoulish rounds. Three months to go.

But Rhubarb inpsired me to think about estate taxes.

I wonder what would happen to our economy if inheritance was done away with. If, when you (and your spouse) died, if you hadn’t chosen charities to give the money to, the state came in and decided how to divide it up among the needy. No passing one’s wealth on to the next generation except in a contribution to the world as a whole.

Maybe people would stop hoarding so much wealth, since not only could they not take it with them, they couldn’t leave it with their children either. Their children would start out (or at least continue on) with no more than anyone else. (more…)

This will be brief, since I’m on dial-up. The temperature got up to 101 Fahrenheit here yesterday, and though we held up, our internet service provider didn’t. I’m not into s-l-o-o-w blogging, so I think I’ll refrain until that’s fixed. Off to my disconnected laptop to write.

We heard rumbles of thunder yesterday, but no rain. Thunderstorms look even more likely today, but at least it’s cooler. (The thermometer says so, though humidity makes me feel otherwise.)

Stay cool.

This is inspired by Eric’s post, Jeepers Creepers. If bug stories bug you, proceed with caution.

Yesterday we had ants, the tiny black ones, in the kitchen. Not scary, just a nuisance that happens every summer. Usually they go for the honey jar on the counter, but not this time. I think they were looking for water, or they knew this heat wave was coming and were seeking a cooler place. We don’t like to use poisons, but when bugs start to take over the house, we’re forced to take action, to draw the line somewhere.

We do try to coexist. We find moths of all descriptions on the outside wall near our porch light. Some are quite beautiful. We leave the hordes of fuzzy caterpillars alone, picturing them as future butterflies, and gently scoop them up if they venture too near the front door. Daddy-long-legs don’t cause us much concern. We get lots of spiders here, outside and sometimes inside where we don’t want them, and now and then an exotic not-so-creepy-crawly wanders through, like the walking stick we found on the screen door—twice. That was kind of cool. Bats eat insects, and sometimes if we sit on the porch at night we’ll glimpse them, fast and silent, swooping in for small flying bugs attracted by the porch light.

Night before last, after a hot day, we waited until after dark to put the trashes out and retrieve the mail. (more…)

The cat’s litter box is clean. That mundane detail isn’t your favorite sentence I’ve ever written, I’m sure. Mine either. But my day often seems to revolve around whether that task has been accomplished, and what comes after it. I go through a list of chores, on the days I think to make one, eventually reaching the line that has to do with writing, after checking off a lot of other stuff. Today writing comes after important things like the cat’s box, which is of utmost importance to her, though slightly less to us except through our affection for her, since we don’t use it and it’s out in the garage, easy for us to forget. Vacuuming comes next, mostly pet hair this time of year. That task must be accomplished while the day is still cool enough to have windows open, or not at all. A late-in-the-day shower will be in order, after all the creepy stuff on the list is done. (Bear with me, I do have a point here, this isn’t merely a run-through of my chores.) (more…)

The subject of privilege came up on a forum where I sometimes participate, and it seems a relevant topic for Independence Day, since we tend to think of the US as a relatively privileged nation. The discussion grew out of one person claiming to be oppressed (my word choice, used to boil the idea down), and another saying he was equally oppressed, with a resulting one-upmanship of who was worse off or better off, at one point involving the term privileged. Out of that grew a separate discussion on what it means to be privileged in this world. Here’s what I shared on the subject, with some edits:

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To me being privileged means having more than one’s basic needs met, and there are degrees of privilege, and it is relative, and basically meaningless. I’m more privileged than some people I know, and less privileged than some I know. But all I can really say about that is what I see on the surface.

It’s tragic that so few people in the world have adequate food, water, sanitation, shelter, clothing, necessary transportation, education, rest, safety, security, and health care, even some people in the US. Those should be basic, subsistence level expectations, especially considering how far we’ve come technologically in this world. Unfortunately those advances seem to be reserved for the wealthiest people in the wealthiest countries, for those living under certain forms of government and economics. Basic civil and human rights should also be considered subsistence level—everyone should have them. Not everyone does, even in the most economically “privileged” countries. We can’t even agree on what civil and human rights people should have.

But I also think many people in the world have a skewed notion of what it is to live under what they consider privilege (i.e. better apparent economic or social conditions than theirs). It looks easier. In many ways it is. It’s no guarantee one will be happy. (more…)