Summer Doldrums

The doldrums of summer have descended upon me like a curtain descends on a play for intermission, where I wonder if I should go grab a glass of wine, go to the bathroom, or go and make a phone call.  Like most Julys, I start pondering things—thinking, scheming, or finding things to amuse myself. Other years, I just sit out in the sun and work on my tan, or lack-there-of.

Some years, I start a novel, either writing or reading one.  Almost all of the novels I’ve written were started in July.  Not this year and the one I’m trying to read, a history of the founder of Rolling Stone, I can’t get into.  It is hard for a Midwest boy to even understand either San Francisco or the Seventies.  I was too young to appreciate the Seventies, by the time I “woke up,” It was 1985 and the Baby Boomers had turned off the switch for the good times and conservatism and Reaganism were firmly in control.  I was 10 days old enough to be able to drink at 18, but that was a minor consolation. 

 I have an idea for a non-fiction research project but, ….yawn!  It is just too hot to sit in a museum and do research in Benson or Granite Falls, Minnesota.   Two dead congressmen will still be dead this fall when I’m more motivated. 

I get into hobbies in July, but rare birds are few and far between. The pike don't bite well, although even a blind dog occasionally finds a bone.

  The dickcissel have stopped singing, as had the snipe.  So these views from June are now fading memories.

My local pair of red-necked grebes are leading their chicks around and although fun to watch, how many photos can a guy take?  

Generally, not much is moving and neither am I.  Usually, I end up photographing snakes, bugs, furry mammals, and occasionally sunsets.  Not that anything is wrong with that and it is about the only month I do it.

A white-faced meadowhawk gets chummy with a garter snake in Day County, SD

A red admiral lands on my wife, she is now blessed with good luck and  fortune

Mud-puddling Melissa Blues

We binge watch television series, like "Comedians in Cars having Coffee" with Jerry Seinfeld., but I won't say anything about that.

There is a behavior I do in July that scares my wife.  As it is the time, I plot adventures.  My two big year projects were July ideas as were two company formations.  Mind you, they were profitable, but still, as they say, an idle mind is a Devil’s tool. A new lake cabin was thought of in July.  I buy things, sell things, and worse for my wife, I schedule things in July.  Even spending July’s in Europe, I schedule things.   “I wonder where that plane goes?”  These are never good words.   Largely, our kids were spared this as they spent July at Swedish camp, and it was being without kids that led to many adventures and many ideas.

This year is no different.  Yesterday, I plotted something big.  Chapter 97, or something like that,  in Olaf’s life now has a title.   Where it will take us?  I don’t know, I never know.  The next adventure starts in Lincoln, Nebraska next Wednesday and I will leave you guessing.  A movie, I like, “Yes Man” goes to Lincoln, too, one of the few, and that ended both good and bad.   So be advised, Olaf IS up to something, something big.  That is next week’s story as Wednesday is coincidentally August 1st, and August brings action to Olaf’s July’s ideas.

Olaf