Starting the second week of August means we really are hitting the Dog Days of Summer. What does that actually mean? Bein’ raised in the South, we always figured the term meant that it was so hot, the dogs wouldn’t get off the porch because that’s where the shade was. Curious, I checked the Farmer’s Almanac, which had this to say:
The phrase is actually a reference to the fact that, during this time, the Sun occupies the same region of the sky as Sirius, the brightest star visible from any part of Earth and part of the constellation Canis Major, the Greater Dog. This is why Sirius is sometimes called the Dog Star.
In the summer, Sirius rises and sets with the Sun. On July 23rd, specifically, it is in conjunction with the Sun, and because the star is so bright, the ancient Romans believed it actually gave off heat and added to the Sun’s warmth, accounting for the long stretch of sultry weather. They referred to this time as diēs caniculārēs, or “dog days.”
Thus, the term Dog Days of Summer came to mean the 20 days before and 20 days after this alignment of Sirius with the Sun—July 3 to August 11 each year.
Who knew!?!? Well, now you do, if you didn’t before. There was also a weekend and week and wepre facing a new week. Friday, Lawyer Guy and I celebrated our 38th anniversary. He’s such a romantic. He bought “cut crystal” plastic plates and Stella Artois Summer Solstice beer so we could celebrate while we ate our sub sandwiches. It was too hot to cook and/or go out. And we’re kinda homebodies anyway. It was fun.
In the “I Can’t Make Ths $h!t UP” category…LG went to the grocery store. Wait, that’s not the weird part. He does that to pick up stuff he needs that he forgot to put on my list and he always asks if there’s something I need. Anyway, he pulls into the lot and parks. There is a Harley motorcycle parked in one of the handicapped slots. And by George, it does sport a handicap liscense tag. LG heads inside and as he turns down one aisle, he finds two people riding in the handicap scooters. The woman is rather…large. And wearing shorts and a leather vest over a tank top. The man is thin with a snake-like ponytail that hangs to his belt. He’s wearing a wifebeater and his vest. None of the patches are…significant. Oh, and the dude is also carrying one of those HUGE old-fashioned Colt .45 pistols shoved into his belt. To make a rather long story short, the guy RUNS OVER A LITTLE DEBBIE’S DISPLAY. He knocks it over, runs over some of the product and just keeps on rollin’, his old lady following, though she did dodge the fallen boxes. LG and another customer reset the display and picked up and stacked the undamaged products. The Black gentlemen then offered to take the damaged items to checkout as he’d been headed that direction when the mishap occurred. The whole time LG and the nice guy are picking up, they are talking about the other two. I really need to hang out with LG more. Weird stuff always happens to him!
Saturday was siren test and lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant with the Kids. Only totally forgot it was our anniversary. She did manage to figure out how long we’d been married, based on her age. This was not a big deal. At our age, we’re just happy to be together and still breathing! 😉
In writing news, I did some! I’m now working on Chapter 6 and I should hit 18K words today, if not more. Progress! So far, all the various characters are playing nice. Let’s hope that continues.
After getting swept by the Braves, my Cards bounced back and played well against the Royals. They still have a long row to hoe to make it to one of the Wild Card slots for the post-season. They’ve done it before and there’re rumors about Flaterhy and Mikolas coming back to their spots in the starting rotations. I tried to watch some of the Olympics but most of the sports I’m interested in never really made the screen. Ah well. In the long run, USA topped the list with 39 gold medals and 113 total medals. The surprise wins were awesome. I didn’t do much other TV watching. Most of the shows I like are on hiatus.
In other news, it’s hot. But not as hot as out West. My sympathies go out to all those suffering from the heat and the fires. It’s awful out there.
Stormy is here every day this week. Baseball Boy’s back-to-school date is a week and a half earlier than Sotrmy’s. Lawyer Guy already has “guy stuff” planned for them. He’s a good kid and a pleasure to be around. We got lucky with our kids.
And that’s all the news that’s fit to print from my neck of the woods. What’s goin’ on in yours?
Silver James 
I think that whole dog-star thing was somewhere in my memory banks, but until you mentioned it, it was buried. Happy Anniversary!! Sorry Only forgot. Owl forgot ours last year and she was living here. I think she remembered this year. :shrug: Kids. Wow about LG’s experience at the store. Some people. Feh. Yay for your Cards! Sorry you didn’t get to watch the Olympic events you liked. Yay for Stormy time! He doesn’t know it now but these are the days he’ll look back on and treasure.
Not much going on here. I made progress on the edit notes yesterday – to like 38%. And I read a book I didn’t write while I was waiting for the old Kindle to recharge. It was cute. All the weathery stuff they were warning us about for yesterday went elsewhere. So, yeah, it’s hot and it’s dry. Speaking of which, I need to water my plants this morning.
We’re slowly turning the guest room into “his” room and he loves it. Also, we have Discovery+ with no commercials. LOLOL
Maybe I’m weird but the longer we’ve been married and the older I get, the less important the “celebrations.” I’m just glad to be around for the next day.
Yay for edit progress and a fun book to read. Glad you missed the weather though it did help to cool things off a bit. Today will be steamy though. And yeah, watering plants during the dog days is important. 😉 Cheers to a good week!