PAYBACK FROM THE ELECTRIC SKY

It's no secret (from last week's blog) that the weather has not been kind to us. We are in this strange pattern of mind-sucking heat followed by hours upon hours (sometimes even days) of unsettled, severe, disorienting thunderstorms and rain and hail and flash flooding.

I have been wary of taking the kayak out because sometimes the radar is clear, then moments later I am cowering with a headset on because thunder is shrieking all around. Some of these sudden and unanticipated squalls have uprooted trees and taken down live wires in a matter of seconds. It's almost like, "What in the freaking fuck, Mother Nature, are you smoking?"

In honor of the continued feud between the weather and me, I have taken to communicating with my weather app the way most people do with Siri and Alexa. The app, appropriately named What the Forecast, is probably the most honest, reliable, and truly direct of all the weather apps out there.

Oh, sure, I still check the local news radar and the radar on my phone that is put out by The Weather Channel. But how can anyone argue with succinct reality? Enjoy the next few days, folks. It looks like three days of ass-blistering heat followed by three days of mind-numbing heat, sure to be followed by days of unpredictable payback from the angry electric skies.

DON'T COMPLAIN - IT'S A HEATWAVE

Dear Everyone who is gearing up to complain about the heatwave:

Shut up. No, really. Put a cork in it.

We have been under house arrest for months. It's not snowing out (although last winter it didn't really snow at all). Outdoor (and some indoor) dining has reopened. Beer is back on tap. Gardens are starting to produce edible crops. Grills are in high gear. People are gathering (socially distant, of course) inside and out.

Life with and amongst humans is finally mimicking normalcy at its most basic levels.

We just ended a four-day weather pattern that was nothing but storms and rain and flash flooding. I drove through a pond as it formed around my car and barely sputtered through. (Two cars behind me? Not so lucky.) I slept on the futon twice this week because it rained so hard and so often and for so long that the rat-a-tat pounding of the water on the bedroom roof and the air conditioner was like torture. My ear buds have earned their keep allowing me to listen to music instead of thunder, and my tablet has brought television into my life without worry of a lightning strike blowing the whole system when the electricity surges.

So, please, don't complain about the heat. Don't whine about the sweat marks under your armpits. Don't curse the hot car seat when you sit your ass down and the skin sears off. Don't compare the sidewalk's reflective scorch with the Sahara. Don't make cracks about frying eggs on the road (you can do it, by the way, because the tar really does get that hot). Don't pick your damp wedgie, don't yank on your soaked bra, and don't flap your long hair off your disgustingly sweaty neck or forehead.

Just look at the sun in the sky and the temperature soar and say, "Thank you, Summer. Thank you for letting me get outside and pretend life is the same as it always was." We may be stuck with limited physical travel, but it's days like these that restore our mental travel.

Welcome, Heatwave. Bring it. Show me what you've got.

BEACH DAY . . . FINALLY

I have been avoiding the beach.

First I avoid the beach because New Hampshire (where my favorite beach is located) won't let Massachusetts cars into their state. Oh, sure, I could go to Massachusetts beaches, except that brings up problem number two: giant jellyfish with tentacles that can grow to 120 feet.  FEET. Yes, you read that correctly. These jellyfish are showing up all over Massachusetts, so, screw that. I'm not going to any jellyfish beaches regardless of what Spongebob Squarepants has to say about it.

Finally, one morning this week I wake up early and simply decide, fudge this crap, I'm going to the beach to walk because it's low tide so the entire beach will be open. I honestly don't care if I get into the water or not (jellyfish), but I need a walk and I need the sand in my toes. I grab my beach staples: water, sunscreen, paper, pens, a book, and my glasses. My beach chairs live in my car 365 days a year just in case I should come across the beach, even in winter, and want to sit for a while. From wake-up to leaving my parking lot, it has been about a half hour.

Two miles from the beach are the salt marshes. One of the reasons I love this beach is its distance from the salt marshes because that's where the greenheads congregate and plan attacking all of the people who are sitting on the beach. For anyone unfamiliar, the greenhead is a nasty giant fly that has jaws of steel, and it will take a chunk out of you while sucking your blood, leaving a nasty miniature bite behind. Greenheads are like inept vampires -- ready to deplete your veins but totally unaware that sharp fangs or needles would actually do the trick more quickly and efficiently. They are the idiot toddlers of the blood-sucking insect world, and they invade New England beaches for several weeks during the summer.

As I pass the salt marshes, something lands on my windshield smack in front of my face. A goddamned greenhead. I try speeding up, but it has a superglue grip to the glass. I examine it closely, trying to deny that it is a greenhead while also trying not to drive off the road and into the salt marsh, thus ensuring that I will either drown or be bled to death by seasonal villains. Even the wipers cannot dislodge the bug. Then, as quickly as it appeared, it disappears, flying off, no doubt, to the beach to wait for me to arrive so it can come in for the kill.

The beach is mostly blocked off. Only half of the lot, that goes on for a mile, is open. The rest is periodically cordoned off with concrete barriers and police tape. No matter. It's 9:15 a.m. I have the pick of spaces. I hop out of my car, look over the breakwall and see ...

Nothing. Oh, I can hear it, that's for damn sure, but the coast is completely and totally fogged in. I can see for about fifteen feet, and that's it.

I leave all of my stuff in my car, tuck the parking pass onto my dashboard, and start down the steps and rocks to the beach. Even walking along the water (and in the water, which is warm and perfect), it is hard to see, which scares the buhjeezuhs out of the unsuspecting seagulls hopping around on the sand. I walk for about fifteen minutes before I decide it is futile to walk the entire beach like this. Instead, I grab my gear, drag my chair down near the water, plunk myself down for ninety minutes, and do what I always do at the beach: write and read and dig my toes into the wet sand.

I know my skin is starting to burn despite the haze, so I pack it in after two hours of absolute bliss. No one has come near me (no need for my mask), barely anyone has entered the water blocking my limited view out to sea, and no one's radio has broken the continuous sound of the waves. Packing up to leave, I am actually surprised by all of the people behind me in the dry sand who have set up their own socially distant stations. I haven't heard any of them arrive. I haven't heard anything except the seagulls and the water, a wonderful gift that only the ocean fog can grant.

Some may think a hazy, foggy beach day isn't a decent beach day at all, but they'd be wrong. It's the perfect beach day because every day at the beach is a perfect day. Until I start the lazy drive home through the back roads, I hadn't realize how badly I needed this, how desperate my mind has been for a day of salt and surf. Best of all, my buddy the greenhead didn't show up, and neither did any shocking jellyfish. I may leave a little more sunburnt and a lot more relaxed, but I also leave without losing any flesh and blood to the beach varmints, in the water or out.

FREEDOM

Well, it's Independence Day weekend.
I got nothing.

There is nothing I can
possibly say that won't
piss off one or both or,
hell, all sides of
supporters and
dissenters and
pundits, paid and unpaid.

This.
This is what I believe in.

Freedom.

Try not to fuck it up.