A typical August day in the gulf South--hot and humid, relieved (somewhat) in the afternoon and evening by thunderstorms.

It wasn't raining particularly hard during my drive home this afternoon, but I was really in between Bad Stuff. The traffic reports told of flooded streets in Slidell. I don't go on the worst ones on my way to and from N.O., but my street had water across it in several places. It's not that it had rained so hard--the ditches are full of tree trimmings and all sorts of other stuff. The one by my mailbox has telephone and cable cables that got taken down, but not away. More than six months ago.

I left Tulane just in time--I could hear the thunder as I walked to my car, and I could see it clouding up very close by. In less than a mile I had my wipers going. Just the usual summer weather.

And this rain will make for good sleeping tonight!

I find it hard to realize that it's August--the peak of the summer. I think it's because I'm working and indoors three days a week. And there was no routine change with the onset of summer--no break between regular semesters.

If it's not raining tomorrow morning I think I'll try to get more of the "lawn" weeded. The weeds (almost treelet in height) should pull up easily after today's rains. It's not that hard a job, it's just getting up the energy to do it. Once I've done some, it will seem very worth while, but thinking about it leads me to consider more pleasureable (or less unpleasureable) things to do. That's sort of the "creative procrastination" thing--no telling what will get done while avoiding a task.

A quick check of the weather map says it will be a noisy evening--lots of thunderstorms headed this way. Oh well, it will cool the air nicely.