Troubling Tropics and Mountain Rain

I am not sure I have a thought deep enough to sustain a whole blog post--but fragments can create an interesting whole too.

--Today I'll go to the library to pick up the 3 climate change books that I put on hold last week.  Once again, I'm reminded of the miracles of a public library, particularly one in North Carolina.  If I have a library card, I have access to the resources of any library that's in the far-flung network.  It's probably not enough for scholarly work, but it will save me a considerable amount of book buying, if I can be disciplined.  And I must be disciplined, for we don't have infinite space for books in our small house.

--Let me remember that we've just seen a tropical storm develop in the Atlantic.  And why is this significant.  In this article, Jeff Masters and Bob Henson note:  "It’s the farthest east in the tropical Atlantic that any named storm has developed so early in hurricane season (latitude 42.2 degrees west)."

--Record setting heat in Texas, record setting fires in Canada--I am so glad to be living in a southern mountain range.  It won't be safe here forever, but probably through my life span it will be.

--I feel a poem percolating about geological time and the wisdom of the rocks.  Or maybe it's the silence of stones, amidst the crashing of the ever-rising ocean, the burning of boreal forests.

--Speaking of geological time, progress on the kitchen remodel continues.  We ordered all the appliances early, thinking they would be here in time for the cabinet install; we just got the dishwasher and the microwave yesterday.  The installers will come back, but it's one more delay.

--The gas plumber is the one person who has a speedy turn around time.  He, too, was here yesterday.  We might have a working gas stove by the end of the week.  And no, I am not worried that the federal government will come to take away my stove.

--And still we wait for countertops.  The measurers will come a week from tomorrow.  When the kitchen designer at Lowe's said it could be 3-7 weeks for a countertop, did that include the time of waiting for the measurers to get here?

--Let me go walk in the raindrops and remember why I love to live here:  cooler, gentler summers.