I looked up from my computer and out the window this afternoon and saw a haze in the sky, and I had to wonder whether it was a house fire or a brush fire. It has been hot and dry for so long around here, and that’s simply unlike the weather we’re used to. I love summer, and I know I should be sorry we’re in a drought, but I can’t feel sorry about the heat, until the county starts burning up.

But hey! A little while later I walked outside to pick up my mail and I felt a little nip in the air. It was almost chilly, and that haze wasn’t smoke at all. It was the marine layer of fog, our natural air conditioning, rolling in just like in the old days, before Al Gore invented global warming. I was never happier to see the onset of cooler weather, not because I want it to be cooler, but because I want it to be normal. This is the way it’s supposed to be, two or three hot days and then the fog for a day or two.

Plus, it’s way better than smoke. That stuff in the air does nobody any good.

Not only was the supermarket out of the kind of yogurt I like (I had to get low fat instead of nonfat, and the store brand instead of Activia), but the salad dressing I wanted was on the top shelf, and all of the bottles within reach were gone. I could see a couple of bottles of the stuff, way at the back of the shelf, but there was no way I could reach it unless I climbed up the shelving. Which I might have done if it hadn’t been so crowded in the store. I don’t like to attract attention like that, so instead I just huffed and cussed and slammed my cart into the next aisle (where they were also out of the flavor of SoBe I was looking for (mango melon)).