In my craw

("No, no, that's CLAW!" to paraphrase a probably-non-PC bit from the old "Get Smart" tv show)

But yeah, some little things that have got to me lately:

* Bad dreams. Why brain, why? The other night I had one where a long time family friend had died and we went to her funeral. I was unsettled by the dream in part because this was a person I had not thought about in a while (and therefore, was not top-of-mind) and once or twice before in my life I've had dreams that seemed later like they had been slightly precognitive. I'm not even sure I believe in that as a possibility...

So far have not received any bad news, so....maybe it was just a random thing?

And last night: I was teaching Youth Group again, but it was just a couple of kids, and one was super rude to me and made fun of me to my face, and I couldn't just tell him to leave for some reason. So I was in a bad mood all morning.

I woke up with the sheet all tangled up around my feet and pulled out from the bottom so I guess I wash a batch of sheets and change them this evening; it's about time. (I try to do them every week, especially in high-allergy periods)

* I either got exposed to poison ivy without seeing it (which is possible, but then again, the rash is under where I had gloves on) or something else irritated my hands to make small blisters (I suppose it's possible some of the blackberry spines penetrated the glove).

But right now my hives are worse than they've been in a while. (It could also be the extreme heat and high humidity)

* This book I'm reading, though it's partly me. The book is on "Environmental Geopolitics" and I guess I didn't know what to expect but....social scientists look at things v. differently from natural scientists, I guess. I am also hobbled mentally by being a FIELD biologist, and therefore pretty fixated on "what works" and I don't spend a lot of time worrying about stuff like "Is it ethical to kill weeds," instead, I'm out there with clippers and machete trying to get rid of the #$#@ fringed twine-vine that's covering everything in the backyard. Or I don't sit around and worry about "are these two groups of beetles on different evolutionary trajectories?" I am more "if they live in the same area and look similar enough I can't easily tell them apart, I'm treating them as the same species"

I mean, on the one hand, it's kind of interesting as a thought-exercise: the idea being brought up that large cities developed really only when cheap sources of "concentrated energy" (coal and oil) became available (Though then again: Rome, Carthage, and some of the other ancient cities, but I guess they were heavily dependent on wood from outlying areas or even things like dry animal dung. And they were in warmer climates where heating in the winter would be less of an issue). But on the other....well, I joked on Twitter that this book has more instances of the word "discourse" in it than anything I've ever read before. And it is maybe a little exhausting.

* It's hot in my office. Like 82 F hot, which isn't *deadly* but it also makes working less fun. Yes, I could take the books home and read at home....but I think I'd be tempted to do other things instead, or do something like "of course I can watch cartoons while I read" and have my comprehension tank.

And it's going to be hot today and tomorrow. Well, hotter than normal, hot enough for there to be a heat warning....it's going to be hot until October, to be honest. And it seems like I tolerate it less well now.

* Am having some minor GI and other issues that are making me wonder if my reproductive system is gathering its energy for one last go....necessitating I reset the menopause clock. At least I know where all my "supplies" are if I need them. (I'm ready to be done. My gyn says "one year with nothing and you can say you're done" but it's only been since January)

* People built a "mini court" for basketball playing here - for kids. I think the police department was also involved with doing this. It was one of those "Let's do something nice for  the kids in town" thing.

Well, they had to close it at least for a little while. Someone vandalized it by driving across it. And apparently it was intentional, not an accident. This is why we can't have nice things. And I really do not understand: why does it hurt you so much that kids are having fun that you want to destroy the thing they are having fun with? Surely it's not that they're so very noisy close to someone's house; I don't think the court was close to houses.

Stuff like that almost makes me angrier than the "big" crimes (like theft) - the person committing it derives no benefit from it (other than maybe their satisfaction in being a terrible person?) and it hurts a lot of people. It's gonna cost money to fix this, money the city doesn't really have.

At church, we had similar issues with the play-area for the Mother's Day Out program: teens (and yes, they were observed, and yes, a representative of the church spoke to their parents, and it did no good) climbed the fence and broke some of the equipment....and at one time we were talking about putting accordion-wire (which is TERRIBLE optics) on top of the chain-link fence to keep people out. The problem declined when one of the families moved away but I guess it's happening again.