Starting to get a taste for the coming humidity. After yesterday’s rain, the air was damp and the sun appeared, drawing the moisture out of the ground—and letting it hang there. No sign of the contractors who were working on the basement egress project. I have a Bobcat and a ditch witch in my front yard, along with a small mountain of good old Virginia red clay, a few bits of rubble, some plastic sheeting, a couple of plastic water bottles, and some stray landscape edging and weed fabric, ripped from the ground by the machinery. No telling when they’ll be back to finish the job. I wonder how much I can get for a hand-operated Bobcat.

Ventured out on the bike after work. Although I can walk much better, I don’t want to risk a long walk and I’m parking my knee scooter in favor of building my ankle’s strength again. The dead bodies are piling up; sidewalks and roads are littered with the dead Brood X. The noise is deafening; have a listen from my driveway:

Oddly the cemetery was the quietest place around. Yeah, I know, cemeteries are supposed to be quiet, but not with sex crazy giant insects everywhere you look. Despite that the place is full of massive old trees, there weren’t a whole lotta cicadas. I did see a few crawling up a headstone. Several were missing their wings, and one wingless begger fell off the top of the headstone while I was taking pictures, righted itself, and then began crawling up the headstone again. Their urge to crawl up is, obviously, fierce.

At the grocery store today I noticed new signs on the doors about masking. Apparently, our county no longer requires fully vaccinated persons to wear masks inside certain places. Many people are still wearing them indoors—including your favorite blogger. You never know with these virulent strains popping up, and I also feel it shows respect for the employees.

Got the manuscript for my latest book back from the editor, accepted her suggestions, and sent it off to the designer. I’m hoping for a publication date before July 1. This book was supposed to be published back on October, but life happened. And at least now this book is happening.

Hubby and I worked on our respective puzzles while listening to more BBC Radio 4 plays. He calls it “practicing for old age.” Oh boy.