MOURNING

I'll just bet you've missed the bird pictures, haven't you.  Well here's one of two.



This is a pair of Mourning Doves.  We seem to live in the midst of a covey (?) of them.  They are all over the place.  I sort of like them but then they don't perch right over my bedroom window.  SWMBO says their mournful but monotonous call drives her crazy.

Incidentally, note the spelling.  Some people refer to them as Morning Doves.  Uh-uh.  Not correct.  I don't know why they seem so mournful but I have described them previously as one of the stupidest birds around.  Maybe they know of their reputation and are expressing their unhappiness.  Whatever it is . . here is a video of one "cooing."



Like I said, I kind of like them.  But when you've heard that sad cry perhaps a couple of hundred times, it can get on the nerves.

WHAT TO DO IN THE HEAT

As some of you may have heard, it gets hot in Arizona in the summertime.  107 in Phoenix yesterday with 110 only a few days away.  It's not that hot where we live but as I've gotten older I've found that a high temperature in the 90's is too much for me.  All of this is by way of explaining the following picture.

The BRD (Beautiful Rich Daughter) and her Beau Jack were invited to a party at some friends' home yesterday beginning at 3 p.m.  That is nearly the hottest part of the day and for some unknowable reason the hosts have no air conditioning or even a swamp cooler.  So what do you do?  You go late (they went about 5 p.m.), wear minimal clothing, and try to stay outside.  This is what the BRD did at the annual Gin and Tonic Party.



She said she borrowed the hat from another guest for the photo.

Beau Jack also dressed, uh, minimally.

That's proof it was hot.  It's the first time I've ever seen that old cowboy in shorts and sandles!

SATURDAY NIGHT'S ALRIGHT (FOR FIGHTING)

I have to tell you . . . I can only understand a few words of this song but I admire the musicianship and the incredible energy.  Turn it up and put on your dancin' shoes.



When I used to want to hear some rockin' piano, I'd turn to Jerry Lee Lewis.  But after watching this I'd have to say ol' Elton could give The Killer a run for his money.

Oh . . and this is from a concert in Tokyo . . to explain the Japanese titles on the screen.

TGIF!



THE "GOOD" OLD DAYS

We had a little taste (test) of the "good old days" last night.  When I turned on the t.v. to watch the evening news, the picture was wobbling in and out.  Same on the other t.v.  Then I noticed the lights were flickering.  As I noted yesterday, it was hot and this was about the time the working stiffs were coming home from work and cranking their a.c. down.  I suspected a brown out.  About 15 minutes later it became a black out as everything electric in the house ceased to function.  Our neighbor had told us there were police cars and a fire truck a few blocks away and she wondered it that had anything to do with it.  So I hopped in the car and drove to where the police had a street blocked off.  A big fire truck was standing by and a power company truck also was there.  Obviously something had gone wrong in an open field and one of the cops confirmed that whatever was going on there had caused the power outage. 

So when I got home, good ol' SWMBO had pulled a water purifier out of the fridge, loaded a bunch of ice cubes into an ice bucket and was mixing drinks with a warning not to open the refrigerator or the freezer until this all got sorted out.

We had our supper from a fast food joint out of the outage zone and sat out on the back patio remembering the days when we lived in Mexico and the power would sometimes go out for hours and hours.

But last night about 9:30, after a 3 hour outage, the electricity came back on solidly and all was well.  It took a little time for my computer modem to catch up but eventually everything was restored to normal again.  As I indicated yesterday, that air conditioning sure felt good when it started up again.

HOT



Tomorrow is the first day of summer but the weather has already heated up here in Arizona.  It's in the mid to upper 90's here but we're in the mountains at over five thousand feet.  Down in the desert (not much of that left) of Phoenix and Tucson, it's approaching 110 daily.  Thank goodness for air conditioning.

Bring on the monsoon.  There already has been one haboob (dust storm) in Phoenix.  That usually means the summer rains are not far behind.

(By the way, I swiped the picture from the National Weather Service.  Thanks, guys and gals.)

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER . . . .

I've just watched the new video of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy".  I can remember watching the first version years ago as it played on PBS after coming over from the BBC.  In that one, Alec Guinness was remarkable playing the very understated George Smiley.  In the new one, Gary Oldman is equally remarkable playing that part.  The movie is a superb telling of a period during the Cold War when word came that there was a Russian mole high in the British Secret Service and the struggle to locate and identify that mole.  If he really existed.  If you can take the slow pace of a thinking man's spy thriller, this is a great movie which I highly recommend.

This is Alec Guinness as Smiley.



And this is Gary Oldman playing the same role.