Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  For some reason I've slept particularly well the past couple of nights.  Generally speaking, a solid night's sleep is a rarity for me – something that happens maybe once a month.  In a good month.  To have two such nights sequentially is most unusual.  If this is a change brought about by ancientness, then I may embrace my ancientness more!

At 5 am, before dawn, the dogs and I took off on a morning walk.  Our heat wave appears to have broken last night – it was cool and humid this morning, and it even spritzed on us a bit.  The forecast is calling for a high of just 78° today, which (assuming that pans out) will feel downright chilly compared with the high 90s we've been experiencing.  The forecast for today also has a good chance of rain, with 4/10ths predicted.  That will be welcome here, especially for all the hay farmers around me.

We only saw one exciting thing on our walk.  Our first sighting was from about 150' away, an animal the size of a small dog scampering through alfalfa that had been mowed 10 days ago.  It was too dark to see it clearly, but it was headed right for us.  It was too big to be a skunk, so I just stopped.  The dogs went on full alert, staring intently at the moving shape.  It was downwind of us, so they had no odor cue, and didn't know what it was.  Finally it emerged from the field onto the road, just 6' or so in front of us – and then we could see that it was a gigantic house cat!  It was an orange tabby (I think – the light was very dim), and had the look of an intact male.  It's attitude was all cat: it glanced at us disdainfully, dismissively, and continued on its way at its own pace.  This despite the fact that all three dogs were slavering, barking, bouncing at the end of their leash trying to get at it.  The cat saw no threat at all, which really tweaked the dogs; they renewed their efforts to seem fearsome.  They failed.  Cat: 1, dogs: 0.  Human?  Laughing :)

As I write this post, it's just starting to get light outside my window.  The sky is deeply overcast, and it's sprinkling just a little.  I just got out my binoculars and looked at my rain gauge; it shows 3/100ths" last night.  That's about right if it spritzed most of the night, which I suspect it did, as everything is damp outside.

My mom and I have started playing a Scrabble-like game (called Lexulous) over the Internet.  So far I am clobbering her in an embarrassing fashion.  She claims its my good letters.  I did something to make her laugh (no idea what!), so it's a good morning :)