“It’s a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water.”
The morning is still and quiet. I don’t even hear the birds. The house is dark. I like it that way. It feels cooler. The humidity is thick. The sky is clouded and hints at rain. It is another hot day at 79°.
On my dance card for the week I have uke practice tonight, a lesson tomorrow and a concert on Friday. The music this week is love songs of the 60’s. On Friday night I have a play. It’s a busy week.
The dogs are asleep on the couch. They do not love the heat, especially Nala, the boxer. Her short muzzle means she overheats more quickly and pants. When that happens, I put on the AC to keep her comfortable. Right now, though, she is deep asleep and snoring just a bit.
When I was a kid, we had watermelon seed spitting contests. I never won. It was the same with cherry pits. I just didn’t have the technique.
Every kid I knew had a bike, roller skates, ice skates and a sled. The bikes had back brakes and no gears. The roller skates needed a key. The ice skates only needed to be laced tightly. The sleds were wooden with metal runners. Most had a rope tied to the front so the sled could be hauled up the hill. I remember the rope got icy. My sled had a wooden steering bar across the top. It sort of worked. My ice skates were white. Every girl had white skates. Each skate had a single blade. Balancing was the key to skating. I fell a few times before I figured that out. My bike had a metal basket on the front. It had a long license plate down the back fender. I got the plate at the police station. Things fell out of my basket when I hit a bump. My roller skates were tightened to my shoes. A strap went across the top of my foot. Sometimes your shoes came loose from the skate bolts while the strap stayed attached. I’d have to lift my foot high into the air with the dangling skate and walk to where I could sit and put the skate back on. I loved the sound of the skates on the pavement and the tingling on the bottom of my foot.
I still have a pair of ice skates and a wooden sled, but I use them for winter decorations. I also have a bike I used to ride all the time, but I can’t remember the last time I did. I have a pair of rusty roller skates with no key. All of them are quite valuable to me. They are the holders of memories.
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
July 9, 2024 at 1:38 pm
29 Hours and 13 minutes
I guess the question of the day is whether or not you can have too much Bob Dylan. This morning he announced the release of the 74 Tour featuring 441 tracks on 27 CDs for around $130
Now as a completist I felt obliged to pre order the box from Amazon, but given the rate at which I consume music, will I really get through all the discs let alone give it a second play ?
July 9, 2024 at 7:45 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I don’t have a definitive answer, but I’m leaning toward no. The 27 cd’s got an open mouth wow response from me.
Money is an issue now as I need my fridge, my car and my washing machine repaired. The car is first so sorry to say Dylan is far down the list, but I’m thinking maybe I’ll gift myself for my birthday.
July 9, 2024 at 6:24 pm
Hi Kat,
Tropical storm Beryl has moved into the Midwest and we are left with a pleasant high temperature of 94° under clear blue skies. Unfortunately, there are a couple of million folks in the Houston area who are without power and they might get it back in a couple of weeks.
I had a red bicycle with wire baskets on either side of the rear wheel when I was a kid. My books fit nicely in the baskets since I rode the bike to and from school. I also had roller skates with a skate key that I wore around my neck on a lanyard. My father had a patio installed in our backyard which was a large slab of smooth concrete. My sister and I would skate around and round on that patio.
When I moved back to New York, I got into ice skating. Across the street from my local high school there was a park called, “Goose Pond Park”. When the pond froze over my friend and I would skate around the pond. My claim to fame on ice skates was not falling down. My friend could actually do a few simple tricks on the ice. A couple of times he and I took the subway to Manhattan to skate at the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. When I came back to Texas I brought the skates with me but they have long ago been lost.
July 9, 2024 at 8:34 pm
Hi Bob,
A couple of weeks! Wow! This time of year is a horrible time not to have electricity. AC alone is a necessity for the area let alone food safety. With Bob, I lost it for a week then it came back and then gone again for 4or 5 days. I ate barbecue!
I remember those sorts of baskets. Mine was just the regular off the handle bars basket. I wish we had bungee cords back then. I also kept my skate key on a lanyard around my neck. I had made the lanyard using gimp. That’s really cool you had your own skate rink. I skated at a parking lot at the top of the hill. No one ever parked there as they preferred to park in front of their duplexes.
I used to ice skate on the swamp or at the town rink. The town used to erect a round fence on a park field then add water to it which would freeze. They put up a shack with benches and a pot bellied stove. I remember all the shoes under the benches. There was another rink a bus ride away, but you had to pay to skate there. They did have a refreshment counter.
The skates I have aren’t the ones I had as a kid. The I bought them 20 or 30 years ago.
July 9, 2024 at 10:13 pm
Monday night on the 10 o’clock weather broadcast, the weatherman said that the highest number of deaths from a hurricane is caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. After the storm passes, people crank up their portable generators and the exhaust fumes gets into the house and kills more people than storm serge, flooding, or wind damage.
July 9, 2024 at 11:09 pm
Wow! That’s horribly amazing. I wonder where they are putting their generators.