Dog Days of Summer

                                                "Summer time and the livin' is easy"
                                                  (Click on photo to make it larger)


         We're smack in the middle of the dog days of summer, those hot, sultry days beginning in early July when Sirius the Dog Star rises and hangs around until sometime in September.  Here in Florida it is too hot to do much outside unless you're in or on the water.  We feel lazy and lethargic.  
         Here at my house, our vacation is over, company has come and gone, and we're not doing much.  Early mornings and late afternoon are great for walking on the beach.  Hot summer afternoons are ideal for going to the movies.  Yesterday, I took my grandson to see the two and a half hour "Transformers:  the Dark side of the Moon" in 3D.  Yikes!  I've never experienced such loud clashing and clanging.  He loved it, of course.  I got  a headache.  
       The stores are going into end-of-summer-sales mode, even though summer is only about half over, but school starts next month.  The Target near my house already has a huge school supplies display.  Since retiring from teaching school, I get a little nostalgic thinking about back-to-school, but the feeling doesn't last long.  Now my daughter is a teacher and starting to think about school clothes and lesson plans.  Life moves on.  
              Noblest of all dogs is the hot dog;  it feeds the hand that bites it. (Hot Dog Hut, Jacksonville Beach).  Well, that is the extent of my intellectual activity this day that  it is 93 degrees with high humidity.