This week, summer arrived. Temperatures rose to levels we haven’t seen in 9 months (mid to upper eighties, plus a healthy sprinkling of humidity). My porch plants wilted as I forgot to make the transition for rare waterings (due to all the rain) to frequent waterings (as they bake in the sun). Pippin climbed into my lap for his customary morning and evening cuddles only to hop down a minute later, offended by the warmth of close contact. Sunlight streamed down until after 9pm, making each day feel like two: a work day and an after work day.

I’ve been waiting for sunlight for months. I’ve daydreamed about long evenings on the porch with a book and a tall glass of iced tea, about after-dinner walks, about getting home from work an not having to turn on the lights. What I’d managed to forget, though, is that when there’s sunlight from 5:30am to 9:30pm, things get rather warm, especially on a third floor apartment.

So here I am, thrilled to have sunlight, but ruefully closing all my shades every morning and not opening them up again until the cool of the evening. So here on a Saturday at noon, I sit in a dim room contemplating lunch.

After a few days of being pampered in probably the fanciest schmanciest hotel I will ever stay in, I’m back at home. Home, where nobody comes to hang fold my towels for me or re-make my bed, or straighten the book I’d left on the night-stand so that it’s edges lined up perfectly with the edge of the nightstand and so that it was evenly spaced between the iPod-dock/clock-radio and the glass art that also functioned as a reading lamp. Nobody here hangs a newspaper on my door every morning, or wipes down the vanity and mirror every day, or tells me that by touching the “help” button on the phone I can have my choice of hard, medium, or soft pillows, or order up an iPod prefilled with my favorite genre of music, or request the holy book of any one of 6 major religions. And, of course, there is no spa downstairs here at home. Not that I available myself of the spa’s services at the hotel. But I could have.

On the plus side, at home I don’t have to wonder if the maid will think that I don’t belong here because I brought drugstore make-up. I won’t feel tempted to use a wash cloth just so she’ll know I took a shower. And I don’t feel tempted to tuck my plane-ride-novel (a spy thriller) out of sight in the darker recesses of my suitcase, hoping to prevent anyone from gossiping about that girl in 2310 who has no taste in fiction.

Also, I’m not feeling very well today, and it’s much better to be under the weather in your own home, no matter how unartistic and unpampery that home is.

I have nothing and too much to say. It’s not that things haven’t been happening. They have. And it’s not that some of those things haven’t been interesting. They have. Some things have even been amusing, which are my favorite kinds of things to write about. And yet I haven’t written. And really, this isn’t my diary and never has been (not that I’ve written in my diary in recent memory… make that nearly 3 years… hmmmm), so I guess nobody should feel surprised. But for the sake of my own memory, here’s a run-down for you in mostly chronological order:

• My sister visited for most of May. Good times. We consumed many “sustaining drumsticks” (of the ice cream variety).
• My cousin got badly burned.
• The conference that I’ve been working on finally happened, and a whole bunch of real live people attended it, and most of them loved it. Though I must say, I’m really bad at being on a conference-organizing committee. I don’t feel like I did nearly as much as everybody else. I felt like a hanger-on more than anything else.
• My place of work received a major award. There was much hoopla, pomp, and even some circumstance. And we’re all very proud of it all.
• My mom visited and did two things that really only a mom can do well: deep-cleaned my stove (along with many other things in the apartment), and got me relaxed and restored and feeling more human than I’ve felt in a long while.
• The choir at church sang a complex, a capella, 4-part harmony piece as the choir-year’s grand finale, and they executed it brilliantly.
• The bell choir finished with a sputter. Due to constantly changing membership and absenteeism, we’d only managed to work up to a 20-minute “concert” which we performed in front of 4 audience members. The day of the concert was the first day we’d ever had the full membership there, and the first day that I could direct rather than play 2-3 people’s bells. Luckily, the bell choir members seemed proud of their achievement.
• My department at work increased by one new co-worker. Woohoo!
• My cousin started doing a little better, though he’s still in intensive care.
• We got word that the book that will include a section by myself and my brilliant co-worker will finally be published next month (only a year past it’s original due date).
• Wave after wave of storms pummeled the area, and P and I even spent one night at a co-worker’s house this week so as to be nearer a basement in case of tornadoes.
• I got invited to present at a major conference, and accepted. Let the nervousness begin!
• A bunch of us went to the art gallery opening where a co-worker’s art was the primary attraction. We then went out for sushi afterwards.

So, yeah… cats don’t like being scooped up and taken to a friend’s house in the middle of severe weather. Pippin yowled the entire night, hissed at my co-worker’s cat from under the door that separated them, stepped on my face and yelled in my ear whenever I looked like I might doze off, and generally did everything in his power to let us know that he was seriously displeased with every aspect of his current situation…. all night. I’ve never seen a temper tantrum quite to that scale before. I’ve also never been reduced to 3 non-consecutive hours of sleep because of a cat before. Needless to say, he is not on my A list at the moment.

That’s probably quite enough for now. I should probably feed all an sundry under my care (even if the cat doesn’t deserve it) and then spend some quality time with a book and a late-morning cup of coffee.