Sunday Salon, August 2nd

A male Anna's Hummingbird who guards our feeder keeping other hummingbirds away.

Weather: hot. The past few days have been record-breaking temperatures. Today there are high clouds and it is muggier than in the last few days. Everything is tinder-dry. There was a huge brush fire near an area high school yesterday and the smoke permeated the whole region.

Open House: Dan and Rita had an open house party this week to show off their new home and to celebrate Rita's Master's Degree and new job. Their house looked so cute and they have such big plans for the future. Congratulations, you two!

Wine Tasting: the Fellowship Committee at church hosted a wine tasting yesterday evening at our favorite place, Rainier View Winery. My friend JoLeigh and her husband Clay make the wines and have a little tasting room. For $6.50 we got to taste five wines. Usually I am all-over the sweet, berry wines but yesterday I was more interested in the drier reds. I bought a delicious Malbec bottle to share.

Mondays: Don's new schedule is 4 days a week, 10 hour days. Mondays are his new days off. For the summer we have decided to make this our exploration days. Tomorrow we will head to the Washington Coast for a day of cooler breezes and sandy feet. Generally temperatures are at least twenty degrees cooler at the coast. I always laugh when people on blogs talk about "beach reading" since it is the unusual day one can comfortably sit and read at the beach in Washington.

It's a job! Carly finally landed a job and will start working on August 10th. After making over 100 job applications she found a job as a receptionist at the hospital. It is not a dream job. She was really hoping for something doing medical research, but it gets her in the door. She will apply again for graduate schools in the Fall, hoping this new job will give her more experience to site on her resume.

Currently reading:

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr...(audiobook); This National Book Award finalist claims no neutral readers. People either love or hate it. We'll see which side I fall on
• Nimona by Noelle Stevenson...(graphic novel); a side-kick to the evil supervillain keeps goofing up his plans. Parts are pretty silly but I am enjoying it.

Completed this week:

• X: a novel by Ilaysah Shabazz...the early years of Malcolm X. Audiobook. An interesting and totally unknown to me, look at his early and formative years.
• Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (e-book) A coming-of-age story about a young gay boy as he is forced to "come out" by circumstances. This book is getting a lot of love in the blogging world for good cause.
• We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach...(Audiobook, YA) a large meteoroid is bearing down on earth and there is a 66% chance it will make contact and wipe out life on earth. These are the last few weeks before the "possible" end. 

Book Clubs: In both my book clubs this month we discussed two clunkers---The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (SOTH book club) was much less fun and lighthearted than the movie. We all liked the movie better, which is a rarity. Deep, Down, Dark (RHS book club) about the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days. It was interesting but a bit too long for our liking and since it covered all 33 men, we all got confused about who did what and when. It was a good read, not such a good book club selection. Selecting good books for book club discussions is not as simple as just picking a well-liked book. Often those are the worst for discussions.

Rubber Biscuit: Yesterday as Don and I drove home we listened to an old CD of the Blue's Brothers (Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi) and we just laughed and laughed over this song: Rubber Biscuit. Like everything, I was able to find it on YouTube. Enjoy!

Paper Towns: Carly and I went to see the movie of John Green's Paper Towns this week. We liked it but both of us like the book better. Typical.

Years of Love: tonight we are celebrating with friends their 50th wedding anniversary. Such an accomplishment in today's society to not only stay married for 50 years but to stay in love for all those years, too. Congratulations, Jane and Bill!