I Didn’t Order July, I Ordered September

I'm glad to see the reading list's back to working.
I've got a sneaky suspicion that Blogger was testing the waters to see if people still blogged.
I wonder how many of us bloggers sent a report in to tell them it was down.
Hopefully enough that they will realize that we are still an important and valuable community.

Tennessee is sitting under what’s being reported as the strongest heat dome on earth right now.
It feels like it's the middle of July out there.

You know it's terribly hot when Cowboy gets in the car, notices we've got the air conditioner on, and doesn't fuss for ten minutes about how it wastes gas.
Or tells us that he'd rather have the windows rolled down.

It's just horrible outside.
Now remind me of this in January when it's zero degrees and I'm griping that my buns are frozen off.

Needless to say, we went out, we got our groceries, then we came home, and we haven't moved out of our air conditioning since.
Well, I mean Cowboy and Heron have to work, but Badger and I have stayed glued to our television.

We didn't even try to take a walk today.
You know, we knew it was hot, but not that hot.
We stepped outside, took a couple of steps off the front porch, that old sun started baking our heads, and it felt like we were pizza in an oven cooking.
So we noped it back inside and there we've stayed.
Call us wimps if you want to.

Mentioning Cowboy and work, there are days I feel like shaking that man, shaking him until his stubbornness flies off.
He's just not grasping that he's now the plant supervisor.
As a supervisor, he's not supposed to be doing all the work; he's supposed to be making sure the employees underneath him do their assigned jobs.
He's supposed to make them do their jobs.
So he just toodles along like he did before he became supervisor.
If they don't do their jobs, he'll do it.
Or, and this is where I'd like to shake him, he'll say, “well, they're adults, they know what to do, and if they don't do it, poop on them.”
No, you bloody old coot.
It's your job to make them do their jobs.
So, and I don't understand this at all, first shift left a terrible mess and didn't do their job at all.
Big bosses made a sneaky inspection, the plant's a mess, jobs not done.
The entire maintenance department got written up.
So many write-ups and you're fired.
So first, second, and third shift maintenance all got a write-up, and that includes Cowboy.
Why?
Dang if I know.
Maybe second and third shift dropped the ball and didn't clean up first shift's mess.
That place has never made a lick of sense.

I haven't heard from Kim today, which isn't unusual; we can go weeks in between texts.
I'll have to text her tomorrow or Saturday; she's not able to drive up to my house so we're going to see her.
She wanted to see me one last time before, as she put it, she gets too feeble.
To be honest, she's close to Powell and I really hate Cowboy driving down there, but I'll suck it up.

As if Kim hasn't enough problems of her own, her friend is supposed to have surgery one day this week.

I'm starting to wonder if she and this friend aren't really married.
He's Cowboy's age; we both like our men much older than us.
She's been with him since the late nineties at least; he takes care of her, gives her money, pays her rent.
Sometimes he's in his own home; sometimes they share a home but not a bedroom.
When she has surgery, and she's had a lot of surgeries, he's there by her side, and then he takes care of her when she goes home.
I'm a little suspicious that they secretly got married or they're in a darn good common-law marriage.
Not that it matters, but at least she's not been alone all these years, she's been adventuring with this fellow.

I think I'm going to go on and turn the computer off and get off of here.
I'm still feeling a bit blue.