June ~ Is Summer Finally Here? .....

© Cleo @ Classical Carousel

Well, it looks like summer has finally arrived.  We've had temperatures close to 30C (90F) some days, however the temperature has also dipped into the teens, so it's still somewhat unsettled and colder than normal.

While the month of May was very eventful, it would probably boring for anyone who isn't interested in sports.  I'm part of the administrative crew for the largest fastpitch tournament in Canada and we've started to gear up for it, so it's been taking up much of my time.  My job includes lots of recruiting, scorekeeping and sending endless emails. It's my first year in this position and I'm prepared for a trial-by-fire.  Please keep me in your prayers, ha ha! ;-)

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In mid-May I travelled to scorekeep a softball tournament in the Interior of B.C. where it is usually desert-like conditions.  Not this year.  They had been having torrential rains and flooding, and we were set to arrive right in the middle of another storm and predicted evacuations.  The rains and flooding were said to be an event that would only happen there once every 200 years.  Ah, what luck!  As it turned out the drive was uneventful except for a snowstorm and fog at the summit of the highway, which lasted only about 10 minutes and the weekend, while overcast, did not bring any further rain.  Phew!

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I was able to have a short weekend away to visit the city of Victoria, which is the capital of British Columbia.  It's a lovely old-world British-style city with wonderful shops and amazing places to eat, not to mention the Parliament Buildings.  If anyone ever visits B.C., don't miss it!

As for reading, as you can imagine, my time has been very limited.  Thucydides' The History of the Peloponnesian War seems to be taking forever and (can I be honest?), he is so dry and uninteresting that I'm feeling like falling asleep whenever I read him.  On a positive note, I do like the speeches, and in particular, Thucydides' speech on the evils of war.  In any case, if I'm not finished this book by the end of this month, I'll cry.  And I think Thucydides caused me to lose my mind a little because I went off track and read three totally unplanned un-classics.  Seriously, don't faint.  I read High Fidelity by Nick Hornsby, a book reminiscent of On the Road by Jack Kerouac, being a memoir of an adolescent adult who refuses to grow up, behaves like a child, and then is completely puzzled that his life is a total mess and he is incapable of having a fulfilling relationship.  Duh!  Next, I read an Alex Delaware novel, Heartbreak Hotel, which was awful (after 32 Alex Delaware books, perhaps Kellerman should give up), and finally Empire of the Sun which was about a boy trying to survive Japanese occupation of China during WWII.  It was mildly interesting but, while two of the books counted for my Guardians 1000 list, I realized that I needed to return to those dependable classics.

© Cleo @ Classical Carousel

June comes with continuing softball responsibilities yet I'm also going to make an escape to the island for a weekend and hopefully recapture some lost reading time.  I'd like to be able to pull out the kayaks and go for a good long paddle as well.  Biking .....? Yoga .....?  Well, hopefully, but of course, as time permits.  I've also starting planting in my garden which should have started a month ago but was held up because of the weather.  Finally my figs are coming out on my fig tree, my quince is in blossom, my apple tree has just finished blossoming, and my Italian plum tree is destined to be torn out because in spite of having piles of blossoms every year, it never bears plums.  I did manage to plant the potatoes I received during my farm trip in April, so it's been fun to see them starting to come up as well.

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As for reading, I'm going to finish Thucydides.  Let me say that again, I AM GOING TO FINISH THUCYDIDES!  I have a number of buddy reads starting including two on Goodreads where we'll read The Republic and Augustine's City of God (help!).  A third will be with Cirtnecce and Helen and we'll start Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye as soon as I get my copy, hopefully in another week.  I'm not trying to look farther than that.  My cup overfloweth and if I started thinking of any more books, my head would probably explode.

And the food blog? ..... ah, the now dreaded food blog.  I'm still waiting for my partner to make a date to get together and compile our bios and mission statement.  Both of us are very busy but chasing him down can be a task in itself.  I've already drafted a number of recipes and tested a number of them (ha, funny how he seems to be around for the testing but not for the writing!) so I'm really ready to launch except for this one snag.  Will we be unsnagged by July?  Stay tuned to find out!

“How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”  ~ Dr. Seuss