Instead and Else, 26th Day of Summer, 525 M.E. (Deneb): The summer solstice occurs today, 10:42 pm Eastern time, officially starting the summer season for many. But in the Universal Solar Calendar, or my New Revised USC, summer began 26 days ago, although we will acknowledge that today is the infamous "longest day."

All those weeks and weeks or rain finally ended today, and the forecast for the next week is all blue-sky, sunny days. Summer has indeed arrived.

I got my walk in today, a Harrison along the river and on into the Cochran Shoals and Sope Creek woods (a fool i'the forest). I didn't walk last Wednesday because the forecast called for an increasing likelihood of rain all day, although in fact it never rained. I kept getting tempted to go outside when the sun temporarily broke through, but then I'd look at the forecast on my phone and decide not to. As it turns out, though, I could have gotten my steps in and returned home dry. Oh well, no such ambiguity today - 0% chance of rain. I hadn't seen that in months. 

And in this way, the languid days and nights of my retirement continue. Each day, I awaken, make coffee, and measure my blood pressure and weight. I do the Times' Spelling Bee over the first cup of coffee to awaken the brain, and then read my assigned pages of Ulysses over the second cup. The rest of the morning usually finds me falling down one musical rabbit hole or another as documented on sister blog Music Dissolves Water. On alternating days, I either sit or walk - today was a walking day. I shower after my walks. By the afternoon, I'm usually playing some video game or another - I'm currently wrapping up Watch Dogs 2. As the evening approaches, I either continue the game or watch whatever's on television - usually Netflix, Max, Prime, MSNBC, or sports. Sports is a biggie, as documented on the brother blog, Sweat Dissolves Water. I'm following this doomed Red Sox season right now, as well as the Arctic Ocean solo circumnavigation of sailor Ella Hibbert aboard the Yeva. Somewhere between all that, I'm posting to this blog and generating the images on Midjourney. The days typically end with The Daily Show and Colbert's monologue, and then an hour or so of reading in bed (not Joyce but contemporary books). And then to sleep.

Who knew life could be so good, amirite?