Ice Cream Day

So today was supposedly National Ice Cream Day. I had none on hand, and honestly didn't want to go out for any at first (heat index: 106 F).

But I couldn't think of anything for dinner. Lunch had been bigger - yesterday evening I had got a barbecue "meat and two" from the good local barbecue place, but when I got home, I realized I had no appetite and ate only about a third of it, and put the rest away. I heated it up (even the onion rings - which are CLEARLY house-made* instead of frozen from a box - heated up fine) and finished it off. So I wasn't hungry, and also the heat makes me lose my appetite (thermostat is currently on 79, for three reasons: to avoid using too much power, to avoid overstressing the whole-house unit, and to hopefully not contribute to brown-outs (I know, it takes more than just me, but))

(*My estimation of a restaurant's quality goes up immensely if I know that certain things - like onion rings - are house-made instead of some frozen restaurant-supply-house thing that they just cook. Frozen onion rings are really not good and are not worth the calories; good house-made ones - and these were - are. I also make my own homemade onion rings but they're a little different - just floured with seasoned flour instead of breaded, and pan-fried until the onions are soft. I prefer soft onion rings to hard crunchy ones anyway)

In a few minutes I will decamp to my bedroom and put the window unit on (I know, I know - but I think it draws less power total than the whole-house unit does) and maybe find something nice to stream on the laptop and knit on the socks I've been working on.

But I ate some fruit and drank a cup of water (to take my evening pill with) and then went out:

Yes, I know, there's a Dreaded Straw in that Frosty but I can assure you: all the trash from my household that goes to landfill winds up buried in the city landfill. (I've seen it and it's nowhere near an ocean). And I don't use straws very often, anyway.

While I was driving out there, Sirius XM was playing "The Steppes of Central Asia" and I heard a bit of the backstory, which I never knew: Borodin, along with other composers, had been commissioned to write works for some festival to celebrate the anniversary of the then-czar.

Well, the commission fell through, the other composers never wrote their works....only Borodin. And I assume he didn't get paid since the festival fell through.

And wow, is that ever Big Mood (as the cool kids say) because some of you might know that Borodin's primary career was as a research chemist, and at times apparently felt like he didn't have enough time to work on music and playing the instruments he played.....and yeah, that really is Big Mood because how like an already-too-busy-person is it to get THEIR contribution done, when everyone else falls through and the thing they were working on it for gets cancelled.