Cometh the Students, Rain, Marching Band, Dogs and More Rain...

For the past several days the campus has been abuzz with the new students moving into the residential dorms. It's the largest Freshman class in the history of the school.  Thursday was like a ground swell of ants. Observing the move from the 4th floor of my office building, I could see multitudes of moms, dads, and students with their push carts full of suitcases, pillows, refrigerators, roll-able carts with drawers full of necessities of dorm living, busy going from cars to dorms back to cars and so forth until the rains came...Oh my gosh, wet stuff falling from the sky!  It rained for at least 30 minutes. Just enough to make it very humid outside, but at least it wasn't 100 degrees.  Some of the parents and students ignored the rain and move their stuff anyways.  

Friday morning found the "The Pride" OU Marching Band conducting an early morning practice.  There is nothing like listening to a first class marching band practicing, which means that Sooner football is around the corner and hoards of Sooner fans will ascend on the city. I detected a touch of cooler air and witnessed a woman taking her morning walk in shorts and a jacket with a hood.  Dave and I looked at each other and mouthed the word "jacket!"  Really?

It was nice enough Friday afternoon that I decided to walk home from work.  It takes about 20 minutes for me to walk from my office to the house.  I have been riding the bus so as to save money.  Dave takes me to work and picks me up for lunch. By riding the bus or walking we save about $340.00 a year.  I could ride the bus in the mornings and then that would save us $680.00 a year.  But Dave and I have a ritual each morning that we are not willing to give up.  It's something that has made our marriage strong for 40 years. 

The "CREW" before the bath

Saturday morning brought forth the sun peeking from behind the heavy clouds. It was nice outside so we decided that the dogs needed a bath.  Dave got the little wading pool out that he bought for the dogs to splash in, I gathered the soap and wash mitt along with my coffee.  We put them in the garden area as the whole area is filled with grass. First we washed Fitz, then Lizzy then Bear.  Fitz loves the water so he decided that he had to chase the water coming out of the hose.  It became a game between he and Dave.  Lizzy is leary of the water but let me scrub her down. I even managed to get her down into the water by flipping her on her side and rolling her in the wet stuff.  She was a good girl and just laid there.  Bear on the other hand had to be retrieved from the farthest corner of the yard and put in the pool and washed.  He is one animal that does not care for the water unless it's to go outside and take care of business and chase frogs, except he is terrified of thunder, go figure. 

Once done I brought them into the other back yard, we have three back yards, to let them start drying off.  I set up my chair and had my cup of "Joe"and was enjoying the morning when I noticed the sky getting a dark, dark grey to the north of us.  I shouted to Dave to check the Weather Underground site and he came back with "Get the dogs in the house now and put up the chair, we have a storm moving in."

I no more got the dogs into the kitchen, in which Dave had the area blocked off with the gate, we wanted the dogs to finish drying, when the heavens opened up and let er rip! The atmosphere was so heavy laden with moisture that  we lost the satellite signal from DirecTV.  It slowed to a drizzle then poured again about an hour later for a good 45 minutes at least.  The system moved out of the area around 3p.m.  It's the most rain we've had since last spring.  We have desperately needed the moisture.  By 8p.m. this evening the ground was dry again and the only way you could tell it had rained was the grass was holding onto the water and the dogs paws got wet when let outside.

Dave got a movie while he was at the store this afternoon. So we had a date night in the living room and watched "The Hunger Games"  It was different but good.  I will have to see it again to really get the gist of it.  By the time it was over the dogs needed out and we were tired.  Although I managed a rally to type this blog. 

Happy trails...

FIRE!!!!!

A Pyro Cumulus cloud breaking through the heat dome trying to create a thunderstorm

Last weekend was devastating for the state of Oklahoma as we had over 18 fires going in the state at once.  One fire  was about 12 miles east of us out at Thunderbird Lake, on Highway 9; it was known as the Slaughterville Fire.  It was a huge fire and many folks lost their homes.  Another fire was near the town of Luther.  That fire was intentionally set.  Why people feel they need to get their jollies by hurting other people who have not done one thing to hurt them, I will never understand.

We found out on Monday that one person had lost their life in the fire out at Lake Thunderbird.  How sad that they were not able to make it out. Another person in our OU Family lost her home as well.  She happened to be house setting her son's house in town while he was away. 

We're now finding out the Slaughterville fire may have been intentionally set. Again I don't understand people and their mindset.  Whoever did this now faces a murder charge. 

The last remnants of the Slaughterville fire were put out this past Thursday and firefighters returned to their stations.

So sad...

HOT...HOT...HOT...

Did I say it was hot?  113 degrees at the moment, with 24% humidity and a chance of it getting to 115 degrees before the day is over, with no immediate relief in sight.  According to www.weather.com it's rare that we have this kind of heat.  The dogs go out long enough to relieve themselves and hustle right back in to the cool tile in the foyer.  I can't blame them.  We fill their water dish at least 10 times or more a day.  I guess that is why the days are called dog day afternoons.  So hot you just want to sleep the day away. 

Next Thursday is our first chance for rain.  There is a 60% chance for the wet stuff, at this point in time anything will be a welcomed relief.  Even some cloud cover would be welcomed. We aren't too picky.   

Actually I would really like to have some cool weather come through. Guess I would have to be a little closer to Canada for that. We are looking at about another 60 days or so of hot weather.  On the Norman City website they have now started asking people to restrict the watering of their lawn on a voluntary basis. 

I sometimes wonder how our grandparents and great grandparents kept cool.  I can remember my mom telling me about how grandma would put a block of ice in the old washtub and set it on a chair, then set an electric fan on a small table and have it blow across the ice.  Mom said that when she was little, grandma would strip her down to her panties for her nap, take a wash cloth, dip it in water then wring it out and twirl it in the air to make it cold then rub her body with it. She would then put talc on my mom and start up the fan blowing across the ice. Sometimes she would rub my mom down with rubbing alcohol.   

We had a water cooler window unit in our house where I lived when I was 5.  Mom would turn that on during the day as I was not allowed to go outside to play due to the heat.  My dad saw that I needed to be outdoors so he rigged up a string of lights from our back poach out to my big swing set out at the back of the lot. Our lot was about 60 feet wide and 150 feet long with the house being up close to the road. As far as the swing set was concerned,  this was not your normal sized swing set, but one made out of oil field pipe welded together to make a huge swing set.  The string of lights lit up the whole back yard as each one was a 100W bulb, there were at least ten sockets for lights. Dad wanted to make sure I could see so I could play outside in the evening when it was cooler.  I had a ball playing outside at night and riding my bike around the yard and exploring the depth of the brush at the back of the property.  Does that make me a Vampire?  

Now I understand why farmers get up before the crack of dawn when it is cooler to do their chores. I could never understand the concept of wearing long sleeved shirts when it was so hot, but as they get wet with sweat they become mini air-conditioners as the wind blows through them. 

The main thing to keeping cool is lots of water for hydration.  We have to keep the wet stuff inside us as well.

How are some of the ways you kept cool as a kid?  What did your parents or grandparents do?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Happy trails...with love