I’m bored.

I know that’s a luxury most of the world can’t afford.  I’m working very part time.  I rent so I have no house projects, indoors or out.  I got super organized before I left to live in the UK in January so all my finances, paperwork, etc. is in order.  There’s no travel in my near future.  Socializing is limited.  It’s so hot that my cooking creativity is limited to salads, and there are only so many salads I can eat fast enough before they go off.  I no long shop for recreation, and I limit grocery shopping to every 10 days.

There’s always TV, reading, and online courses.  But for today I am just not into anything.  It will pass.  Everything does.  Tomorrow something will grab me.

—

Yesterday I went for a bike ride without checking the weather first.  It was another hot and humid but beautiful day.  I rode three miles to Lake Phalen, an average sized Minnesota lake— about 200 acres.

There was a lush bee garden planted beside the lake.

Even the green slime on the water plays a role in creating loveliness, contrasting with the dark green trees and blue sky.

A mural on the bikeway.

La la la la la!  I was enjoying myself, dreamily tootling around the maze of paths, bridges, underpasses, and small lakes and streams adjoining Phalen.

Then the rain started, a few gentle drops.  “It’s only water,” I told myself.  I saw people running from the beach to their cars and wondered why they wouldn’t just wait it out.  Surely it wouldn’t last long, right?

I have an infinite ability to believe that, since it hasn’t rained for a week, it will never rain again.

The wind picked up and dark grey clouds swept in.  I biked away from the lake into a neighborhood and sheltered under a Maple.  The wind began to roar and small branches fell around me.  I was still fairly dry with my back up against the northwest side of the tree.  But then I wasn’t, and then the hail started.  Good thing I was wearing a bike helmet!

But my phone …. A year ago, as you may recall if you’ve been reading for a while, I dropped my phone in a toilet in Koyasan, Japan and it died.  An expensive lesson.  Lynn gave me a waterproof phone bag for my birthday.  Was I using it?  No.  I started to panic and whimper.  Why am I always so stupid?!  These are the kind of thoughts I revert to under duress, even though logically, I know that I am only stupid once in a while.

Next will be the lightening strike, I thought.  Just like me, to get struck by lightning during a global pandemic.  Another drama-infused go-to thought that I half believed and half laughed at through the water pouring down my face and washing sunscreen into my eyes.

I heard someone calling.  A resident across the street had spotted me and she invited me to wait out the storm on her screen porch.  Very kind.  She even gave me a baggie for my phone.  I feel bad today because I wasn’t wearing a mask and I told her during our distanced conversation I had “just” returned from the UK.  I wonder if, after I left, she realized that the UK has the second highest death toll in the world.  I should have mentioned I’d quarantined.  Oh well!

I headed home once the rain tapered off, but it burst back into a raging downpour when I was about a mile from home.  The wind was ferocious.  Branches were scattered all over the sidewalk and there were sections that were flooded.  It made for quite an obstacle course.

A car sped by and—purposely?—sent up a tidal wave of water that would have soaked me through if I hadn’t been already.  I laughed maniacally.  Nice try, bastard!

I got home.  My phone is fine.  I wasn’t struck by lightening.

Maybe it’s natural and okay to feel bored for one day.

Some other photos from my week, starting with a deer encounter.

Independence Day with the granddaughters.

Squirt gun bandito, aka my six-year-old nephew, on our weekly day out.