I set out this afternoon to test the Law of Neighborhood Peer Pressure.

But either it's too random, or it works too well - like, mystically well. Because as I was finishing mowing my front yard (I did the back yard first), I heard this noise.

It sounded like the unholy love child of a "rice-burner" motorcycle and some of the scarier dental tools I've experienced this summer.

Yup, north side neighbor's errant lawn-service people (they've been MIA for over 2 weeks) showed up and were edging.

So my mowing the lawn was totally unrelated (unless, like I said, there's some kind of crazy mystical thing in play, or, alternatively, the lady-of-the-house next door called the lawn service and said, "Get on it! Our yard will be the worst on the block if you don't!").

The other bad thing about not getting to test the Law of Neighborhood Peer Pressure is that the last 10 minutes or so of my lawnmowing reverie (remember, I use a reel-type mower so if I'm the only person out all I have to listen to is the soft "snip-snip-snip" of the mower as it rolls) was interrupted by that edger thing. And it's hard to enjoy a mindless task when it's noisy all around you.

Still, there's my neighbor to the south - his lawn is getting kind of long so I can see what happens over the next couple days.

Oh, and it's hot. But I've learned that after about 2 pm the humidity drops to a point where it's merely hot and not oh-my-goodness-I-think-I'm-going-to-die hot. Or I've become more tolerant of heat.

The secret is to drink a lot of water over the course of the day beforehand, and stop midway through to replace the water lost to perspiration.