I’m blaming the blue hydrangeas. We’ve had a sparse array of purple hydrangeas in the two dozen years I’ve lived at my current residence. This year’s crop of blue flowers is unlike anything we’ve ever experienced, though they’ve since wilted under the broiling sun.
This must explain why I’ve felt less than great for the last several days. Despite taking allergy medication, my head is stuffed up, my throat is scratchy, and periodically, I experience a coughing jag.
This makes me tired all of the time. Saturday night, I went to bed about 8:30 p.m. I woke up a half dozen times. Then Sunday night, I was sitting in my office chair when I fell asleep, waking up at 2 a.m.
This was very disorientating. What should I do? I should go to bed, right? Or should I play Wordle? Seriously? OK, I’m loopy enough to do that. I got an R in the second position, and an O not in the third position. For some reason, I thought of the late comedian Richard Pryor.
Wordle 1,094 2/6 
AROSE 4 PRIOR
Then I HAD to go to bed. I felt pretty dragged out on Monday; I didn’t even get dressed. I was required to go out on Tuesday for a library thing, but I may not leave the house the rest of the week; it’ll be 9F/33C or above.
My wife and I had installed the air conditioner on Saturday. It’s funny how no matter how many times we put it in, it’s as though we’d never done it before.
Off, eventually
Speaking of my spouse, she’s finally going to take eight weeks off this summer. But this, of course, means she has to get many things done beforehand. Also, she and her colleague had to work on student recognition and volunteer appreciation events in the past two weeks.
Our daughter and I also attended the latter event after we helped set up. There was a trivia contest and I joined a group of people I didn’t know. we started slowly, but after the middle round, we were in second place.
Then we were to name the four Pac-Man ghosts. I knew Blinky and that two others ended with inky. We guessed Pinky, though we missed Inky and Clyde, and were ahead by two.
The final question category was board gamers. we bet 79 of our 82 points. How many states appear on a Monopoly board? We guessed eight but fell short: VT, CT, VA, TN, NY, KY, IL, IN, NC, and PA Avenues plus the PA Railroad, for 11. The team in last place, with 40 points, bet it all and won. Everyone else bet it all and lost. we came in second place with our 3 points. I should have started thinking geographically rather than alphabetically since none are west of the Mississippi River.
Outside the hall where the trivia event took place was a cute little bunny. A guy with a leaf blower, who almost certainly didn’t see the creature, terrified him.
I almost forgot: at some point in the last week, I got a second-degree burn on the side of my right hand. I had taken the lid off the boiling water, poured in the oatmeal, and attempted to set the timer when I grazed the hot lid.