A wee bit hot

Late summer yellow rose

Today, John dropped me off at the Cornwall Rose Garden and I strolled through it to see the last of the summer blooms. It got very cold last night, down into the low fifties, and this sweet blossom still had some pearly drops of dew to make it seem even more lovely. 

But before long, as I walked home for the second day in  row, it began to warm up. A lot. Right now, at 4:00 in the Afternoon it has warmed up to the mid-eighties. It is a rather anomalous day, but tomorrow should be a normal temperature day, perhaps twenty degrees cooler than today's summerlike feeling. I enjoyed the brief reminder of summer's heat, but I much prefer the brisk fall temperatures.

Yesterday I received my first massage since the skin cancer surgery. I wanted to wait until the scar was only a little bit visible, with the dissolved stitches gone, and still it was a bit on the sore side as she worked around the area. I have missed getting a monthly massage, and it was simply divine to be given a full-body rubdown after a few months. I am now scheduled for anotner one, and life is beginning to feel much more enjoyable, with my mood improving, after having gotten more than eight hours of sleep last night.

I realized today that my hip problems don't allow me to spend around three uninterrupted miles of walking, two days in a row (a total of more than six miles) without some discomfort. I am happy that I can manage as well as I do, but I'm reconciled to less exercise than I once thought I couldn't live without. I'm still hanging in there, and those two days of volunteer work I do in the dining room at the Senior Center (on Thursdays and Fridays) and my usual walks seem to be the most I can manage comfortably. It's not nothin', so I am not complaining. 

Dying tree

Our apartment complex is just across the street from Birchwood Elementary School, and I noticed that this big beautiful tree at the front of the school seems to have died over the summer. I ran into a teacher this morning who told me that the school called in an arborist to see if the tree could be salvaged, but learned that it is beyond hope. This Friday it will be removed, and that I should be ready to find a detour since the road will be blocked off as they cut it down and turn it into timber and mulch, with the roots remaining in the ground. It will be sad to see it go, but there are other trees around that are healthy and will slowly take over. 

It is just another reminder that nothing lasts forever, even big trees that have been around probably longer than I have been. Reminds me of that old Cat Stevens song, "you want it to last forever but you know it never will," so I said goodbye to the beautiful old tree and will take a picture of the spot where it stood, once it's gone.

:-}