summer days

I find that I behave differently when I'm all by myself than I do when people are around. I wander a lot. I have no patience for it when others are around -- I hate when we have errands added to the list "since we're out anyway," but alone, I can flit from place to place until I get bored with it, then go home.

I flitted a bit today, though I didn't begin as early as I had hoped to. I tried to stop by a couple of camera stores to pick up a polarizer for the new camera, but they were both closed for Memorial Day. I stopped at Zen to eat lunch, the third time this weekend that I ate fish. (The figure is noteworthy only because I've been eating almost exclusively vegetarian since January. I've broken it for fish only in the case of sushi and when there was nothing else to eat. I'm thinking of adding fish back into my diet, though -- it's easy to find myself lacking in protein when I don't feel like cooking tofu.)

And then I braved the crowds at Zilker Park to go to the Taniguchi gardens. Thankfully, the botanical garden section of the park was pretty sparsely populated, and the crowds were centered elsewhere.

The heat was stifling, 97 degrees at about 1pm, with a haze that looked like thermal radiation rising off the pavement, obscuring my view of Austin. My pictures wound up a bit overlit, but spending time in the garden was as grounding as it always is. In the shade, surrounded by water, I hardly noticed the heat until I found myself feeling nauseous and a bit shaky. I took the hint and headed home.

Later in the afternoon, the heat amplified the sounds of thunder rolling through the sky, and with the passion of mid-summer, the skies opened up, unleashing a downpour that I hoped would cool the city down a bit. To my dismay, long after dark, it still felt hot and muggy, like a wet sauna. It'll be a long summer, I imagine.