This is a cross between unwinding from a tiring if uninspiring day and letting a pot soak a bit before I try to clean it.
First off, after our extended drought it's been raining like a bastard. The rain is the only time the heat backs off out of the 90s this summer. Between all the water it was getting and not being able to cut it, the grass needed attention. Yesterday wasn't TOO hot, but I ran out of gas before I finished. Banged the rest out before Noon today but even so it was already up to 90 and my shirt was soaking wet with sweat. After lunch and a nap (and a change to dry clothes) I headed out for errands. The AC is out on my car so the dry clothes didn't stay dry long, but they also weren't dripping wet.
6 days ago a fellow real estate investor pitched a property he had at the monthly meeting. The price, size, and configuration sounded good and the neighborhood seemed OK so I pinged him for the details. There was an old Zillow listing that was a bit confusing because it said the place was a 2br and the guy said it was a 3. Turns out they basically cut the living room in half and turned everything behind the fireplace into a new bedroom.
A little depressing because I could see what a nice place it had been when it was built. Heck, even Zillow pictures from 2005-ish showed the charm and potential the place had, but it had been badly neglected and trying to shoehorn a 3rd bedroom into a cozy little Cape Cod instead of cleaning it up and finding the right person for it just made matters worse. Add in no central AC and that the electric meter had been pulled. Also, in spite of reassurances of what a nice neighborhood it was (and it is in one of those funny places where there are beautiful expensive houses 2 blocks east) there were big PRIVATE PROPERTY/NO TRESPASSING signs in the windows, I found what appeared to be a live .45ACP round laying in the backyard driveway, and what appeared to have been the old front door was in the kitchen and may have had a bullet hole in it. So yeah. That's gonna be a "pass" for now.
Oh, I forgot the downbeat start of the day. I'm too old and soft to live in this world. Within 20' of starting mowing lawn the blade made a hitting something noise and it turns out I'd neatly decapitated about a 17" rat snake. So for the next 5-10 minutes I got to see the body writhing around every time I made a circuit. Looked closely at it and the head was completely disintegrated so there was no pain, just reflexes but it still seemed cruel. I tried running it over but it was too low for the blades. Poor guy must've been startled and looked up to see what was going on.
So anyway, after the house visit, it was off to pick up a furnace filter, then off to the bank to deposit a dinky little dividend check from a stock that doesn't have dividend reinvestment--and also to check how much of the promotional period (if any) I have left on my home equity line of credit. First place I stopped for a filter didn't have my size and the bank closed 17 minutes before I got there (this bank is totally in the 20th century, I like the people there but it's a headache and I should just switch but that's another story). Went to the ATM to deposit the check and found out my bank card had expired 4 days ago. I'd go find out about that but...
So. Got home. Had a beverage to help rehydrate (I had multiple beverages after lawn mowing) and a quick nap to recover from the heat, then I tackled dishes until I got to the pot that needed to soak a bit. This weekend I did my gumbolaya, which involves starting everything in a pan and then transferring it to a crock pot that has rice, water, and a can of beer in it and letting it stew overnight. So lots of dirty dishes. Now it's about time to get some dinner going and tackle that pot.
[EDIT: Oh, I remember the other thing I was going to say: making a left coming back from the house proved too difficult so I wound up turning right and driving past places I used to walk Old Dog that I haven't been with New Dog yet and getting choked up about her again. I will never fully get over missing her. But now I've got to go because New Dog is making plaintive whimpers to be petted.]