Nothing like a COOL BREEZE...
...quite a change from last week's relative inferno!

I must be really strange. When the weather is turbulent, I think it's cool. Mother Nature in action. I felt like I was going to pass out in last week's heat, but the last couple of days have been totally different...cool, breezy, and just "aaaaah". I guess the high-pressure-masses are colliding with the low-pressure-masses (see, it takes no genius to predict the weather!), and, BOOM! WHOOSH! The rain pours down, and it was raining cats and dogs (funny, I didn't see animal control out there anywhere), and by this afternoon, all that had morphed into a pretty fair day.

If you walk down by the lake, you'll see a thin yellow strip of pollen, where the waves hit the shore. You were BREATHING it last week. I'm wildly allergic to that stuff. So if that pollen washes down the Spokane River, into the Columbia River, and eventually ends up out at sea, well, good riddance. The "smell" of the lake air right after a rain is truly the pause that refreshes. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm walking a bit on a semi-regular basis. I had the park basically ALL TO MYSELF. "And the name of the place is...I LIKE IT LIKE THAT"!



Since I'm out of historical photos at the moment, I went into Google and got this one; a lightning strike over Coeur d'Alene Lake. I'm not sure if anything like this has happened over the last couple of days, but sometimes the weather can get pretty forceful around the lake. I believe this photo looks south from somewhere on the Dike Road.
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I NEVER get on a bandwagon dept.: I read a column in Saturday's CDA Press, in which old out-of-it-guy Bob Paulos was urging everyone to do his part and go get a BIG MAC on Monday, to show appreciation for our new "Kroc" Community Center, which is associated with McDonald's 'first family'. I thought the article was just plain SILLY. Rah-rah-rah, yadda-yadda-yadda. I can't help it that I am skeptical of everything. Kinda makes me wonder if there'll be 'golden arches' above the Community Center when it's built.

Bang, Bang, Maxwell's Silver Hammer came down upon his head dept.: You remember that fairly dumb tune from the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album, rrrright? Well, a certain individual is in trouble for various things, including smacking someone on the head with a HAMMER, it was reported in today's paper. And ain't it weird, how things work out? I am not kidding here; what caught my eye was that the last name of the hammer-wielding individual is "SWING". I guess you could say the cops "NAILED" him??? I can just hear Al Borland now: "I don't think so, Tim."

They didn't fuss over me like that dept.: When I broke my ankle in two places in 1972, time didn't stand still; a nation didn't speculate over my fate, my every move didn't command attention, and nobody really cared all that much. Of course, I wasn't a horse, either. During the recent Preakness horse race, "Barbaro" busted one of his ankles in two places. And, I had to resume going to school a few days after my break happened. Barbaro gets to do nothing; if he recovers, he'll be put in the pasture with many eligible fillies. It's a horse's life, I guess.

Goodbye classmate dept.: The CDA de-Press puts its OBITS on either page 2 or 3, not like the Spokesman-Review, which tucks the notices in the back. Anyway, while waiting to swipe a copy of the "Review" from another coffee drinker, I looked thru a "de-Press", and I got depressed. Bam, right there as I flipped open the paper; Ron Perry, a CHS classmate of mine, died Saturday. He'd had heart problems; I guess he'd had numerous operations. He owned the used book store near 4th and Harrison for a while. He was a real "force" in high school, a dynamic, fun-loving character. He looked in good health at our 30th reunion, back in 2002. Just another episode which shows us all how fragile life is. Rest easy, buddy.

Message to all local political candidates: I will NEVER vote for any candidate who leaves me an annoying phone message. I paid EXTRA for my phone line so I could have some privacy! Do you understand that? That makes me almost as mad as when one of those annoying "strip" ads are attached to the Spokesman-Review Sunday COMICS page. I guess I could tell all advertisers that if you advertise that way, I will NEVER read your ads!
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You know, I was beginning to worry about myself, but I'll be okay. This post had been way too mellow, but towards the end, I built up a healthy head of steam. Yeah, I'm all right. I think.