Hot, Legs

So, I have a handful of partially-written posts, with varying degrees of completeness, but I thought I would share a funny story from Saturday evening. Thank you to my electrologist M, who suggested this would make a cute blog post. :-p

It's been unusually hot and humid here in the Boston area for the past two weeks; we just had our sixth straight day with temperatures well above 90F (33C) and dew points in the mid-60s, with at least two more days to follow.

We had an incredible microburst late Saturday afternoon, the likes of which I have never seen. We had torrential rain, 65 mph/104kph winds, and quarter-sized hail. The rain and hail were literally horizontal. It was surreal - and even more so when it ended barely five minutes after it started. Amazing.

We lost power in my neighborhood for nearly 10 hours, which made for a stiflingly hot sleepless evening. (We lost it again Sunday night/early Monday morning, but I'd had my air conditioner on for several hours already, which helped my bedroom stay reasonably comfortable until the power came back on at 3:00 AM.)

But I digress. :c) The story takes place early Saturday evening, shortly after the power went out. It was a limited outage; the other side of my block never lost power, nor did downtown.

I decided to simultaneously run an errand and reward myself for managing to exercise in this heat by picking up my favorite, toffee nut iced coffee. I took a quick shower and threw on a dress I'd had for several years but had never actually worn before. I grabbed a pair of flip-flops and headed out to my car.

There was an outdoor concert taking place near downtown, so I decided to park a few blocks away and walk over, rather than hunt for a parking spot.

As I was making my way downtown, a car was passing the other way. I wasn't really paying attention until it slowed down and the driver side window lowered.

I glanced over and saw a middle-aged gent (and rather nice-looking, actually) whistled appreciatively.

"Damn... those legs must go all the way to heaven!" he said with a wink.

(For the record, here's what I was wearing:)

Somehow he avoided coming off as a leering jackass lol, so I felt comfortable replying.

"Thank you," I said with a smile. "But actually they're just going to CVS."

(CVS is a drugstore, for anyone outside the States who may not be familiar with the name.)

After a split-second he laughed out loud, then replied "Touche!"

I grinned, thanked him again for the compliment, and wished him a good night. He bowed theatrically behind the wheel, raided his window, then beeped twice as he drove off.

The grin never left my face the rest of my walk, needless to say. :c)

***

Here's a bonus photo, in case you were wondering just how humid it's been here. This was taken  Sunday evening:

Yes, somehow my hair was even bigger than the previous post. :) I did nothing to get it this way, incidentally - no gel, mousse, hairspray, etc. This is Mother Nature's doing entirely. Any bigger and I could be a Southern Belle the way I used to dream about! lol

***

As you can imagine, I had no choice but to post this tune:

That is one hell of a great song, even if you don't like Rod Stewart. I do, incidentally, as you probably guessed. :-) His first five solo albums, and his tenure in The Faces atone for nearly all sins committed since.

Here's one more to demonstrate what an incredible live band The Faces were. Be sure your seat belt is fastened and your tray tables are in the upright and locked position before watching this one:

RIP, Ronnie Lane and Ian MacLagen...

Hair, Meet Humidity

This isn't the post I mentioned previously (I actually have *another* one I need to write before that one, in fact). But a photo I snapped yesterday (Monday) amused me greatly, so I thought I would share it.

It was VERY hot and humid here over the weekend, and particularly on Monday. Think Southern Florida hot and humid.

I had a fascinating chat with TDMM (The Divine Miss M - hey hon! :-p) at work about some of the differences I've noticed between "him" and myself. My perspiration certainly differs, which we both found intriguing.

I still perspire quite a bit, but its feel, and taste, are totally different from "his." I mention this because after work on Monday I went for a long walk. (I'd run both Saturday and Sunday.) I'd had my hair up all day, as I typically do at work, mostly so it isn't in my way. When I came in from my walk in the steam bath we call a New England summer, I took my hair out of its bun, sat for a few minutes to cool off a bit, then got dressed and headed home.

I'didn't think anything of how I looked until I stopped at Starbucks for my toffee nut iced coffee, my daily post-exercise reward. A fellow customer glanced at me and said, "Pretty humid out there today, huh?" I smiled and nodded while she stared at me, apparently in wonder, for a moment more. I filed it a way after a moment as one of those odd moments.

No sooner had I done so than one of my barista friends came over and said, "So... just a bit muggy, huh, Cass?"

I must have looked baffled, because she laughed and suggested I go look in the mirror.

So I did.

And when I saw this I burst out laughing:

Oh. My. God.

This is hair you measure by its wingspan.

We are talking Southern-Belle-Closer-To-Heaven hair.

This is the only salvageable photo of the lot; I was giggling so much the others are all useless. lol

I think my dear friend Alice summed it up best when I sent her this shot via text:

"Wow."

Just so. :c)

Anyway, I know many of my posts have been fairly somber. The past 8-9 months have been difficult. So when a moment of much-needed levity arrives, it should be treasured. And this one was. :c)

***

A quick shout-out to a special someone (let's call her... oh, I don't know, Miss SBS) for a most memorable evening late last week. Hope you enjoy the little memento I left and file it away for future reference. ;c) Thank you again, hon!!! xoxoxo

***

Here's some Otis Redding to help celebrate Hump Day (a/k/a Wednesday):

And here's Peter Gabriel's stunning cover version of Lou Reed's gorgeous "The Power of the Heart."

It's from an covers album (which is excellent) that he recorded in 2010... although I can't quite nail down the title... :c)

Friday Check-In

Just a brief hello to say I'm working on a longer post, which I should have up in the next day or two. Hopefully it's worth the wait. I've been dealing with insomnia for some time, which partially explains my pensive expression, above. I'm doing my best to just try to take things one day at a time.

More soon. Have a good Friday, everyone...

***

I've been listening to the blues quite a bit lately. First up is "Old Love," a great song co-written by Eric Clapton and Robert Cray, from Clapton's 1989 album Journeyman. For my money it's his best solo album, and this is its best song. The guitar playing, as you would expect, is stellar:

I was shocked to discover that in five years of writing this blog I have never posted a single song from Robert Cray. I've loved his music from the beginning. This is my favorite song by him, "The Last Time (I Get Burned Like This)," from False Accusations, his 1985 album. (Strong Persuader, which features "Smoking Gun," came out in 1986.)

Few songs are as dead-on in capturing the emotional devastation caused by betrayal. He still performs "The Last Time" to this day, and more than does it justice. But it's clear from his performance here, shortly after the album was released, that this song was deeply personal:

His guitar playing is so spare, but so incredibly evocative. Less is quite clearly more in this instance.

I will certainly be posting more from Mr. Cray in future posts. Stay tuned, everyone...

A Trifecta of Thank You's

Hello all, and Happy Fourth of July for those of you in the States. (And a belated Happy Canada Day for my friends north of the border.)

I realize it's been a while since I posted. I hope to do better. A lot has been happening, not all of it good. But for this post I thought I would focus on three instances when it was, and thank those responsible.

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