End Times

Yesterday was the kind of weather I never feel we deserve. August in West Tennessee is pretty much like winter weather in Minnesota: We just try to get through it and survive. I find myself opening the door a mere crack to let the dogs run outside and use the bathroom before ushering them in quickly. It's so hot that five minutes in the August sun makes my Sebastian gurgle like a lung cancer patient. Yes, we are just trying to survive this month.

Yet, I opened the door yesterday morning to an unseasonably cool--okay, 90 degrees in the shade--but not nearly as humid day. As it was the Bunny's night off from work, we had an early evening supper comprised of all the goods I scored at Mom and Dad's house: roasted eggplant with a basil and cucumber yogurt sauce and a Greek pie concoction with malabar spinach, roasted tomatoes and onions, feta, and fresh mozzarella. Then we went downtown to get some homemade birthday cake ice cream and sat on a bench in the courthouse square.

We saw Pa Kettle, the latest downtown scamp to inhabit our hood, and he, of course, heckled us for random information about watch batteries and KOOL cigarettes. Spawned out of a comment left by my friend Grace on my previous blog entry, I relayed an idea for a sexy thriller novel that would surely be adapted into a money-maker film. It's about a professor couple that gets involved in a steamy threesome with a former student of the female part of the couple. Let's just say the inevitable racinian ladder ensues and, of course, someone goes crazy and someone dies. The student goes on to academic success before perpetuating the same vicious, steamy cycle. Heard this plot before? Me too, but I figure illicit sex acts involving bourgeois parties never fall out of favor in popular culture. I'll certainly never get rich writing about incest stereotypes in Southern literature and culture, but this might be my golden ticket to pay off my exorbitant student debt. It'll make the kind of book-turned-film that was so hot my mother made me cover my eyes. (Think Sliver and Disclosure in the 90s.)

After our co-writing session--the Bunny kept adding erotic details to my basic plot--we drove home and enjoyed the cool evening in the backyard with our dogs, which includes the foster dog we are keeping until we can find a suitable home. We ended the night on my heirloom quilt, sprawled on our backs on the front porch, and staring up the sky at the meteor shower until 1:00 this morning. I suppose it isn't necessary to add any full-circle commentary or poetic conclusion. It is what it is--my perfect day recorded here for me to savor again when I find this blog again.