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Work today was fine. However, the forecast said the temperature was supposed to get to the mid-80s. A fact of which I was blissfully unaware. Ah, the drawbacks of ignoring news and television.
So, I found out when I left work a bit before four. It was 86 in the sun, and you don't want to know what it was in the car. But oh, walking out that door, the flowering bushes along the walk filling the air with the heady perfume that only comes out when the heat is really there, the smell of fresh-cut grass, the weight of the heat on your skin, beyond tolerable for me and yet still pleasant in its own way, the last of sun-heat on your skin when you step out of the shade, the lazy summer feel missing only the buzzing of the bees (none to be heard). The stillness, the vivid colors, the green of the grass so bright, the sky too pale to look at comfortably, and not a cloud marring it to achieve that softened hue.... The interior of the car smelling of faintly warmed plastic, neither pleasant nor unpleasant precisely, but unmistakably the scent of a car in summer....
Then I turned the air conditioning on full and that was bliss as well, the chill indulged within the warmth of the day.
Stopping at the store was not what I would call fun. I decided to go to Fred Meyer's to have more options in most things (and less with my milk - stupid store carries quarts of every single type of lactose-free milk except the one I want, the fat-free - but oh well). I should have seen the backup and fled, but the Tualatin exit often backs up. Considering one lane goes left and two go right, it usually clears out again pretty quickly, but if I'd thought, I would have remembered it was earlier than I usually go by and perhaps reconsidered....
There was an accident on Nyberg, just right of the ramp, partially blocking the rightmost lane (halfway) so that traffic had to merge and separate to get around it. It took several light cycles to get up there. It was obvious long before then that the exit was a bad idea - my first complete stop was well, well back of the actual exit, still in the exit-only lane. But you couldn't get out of it because the main traffic was zipping along and you were at a standstill, so I stuck it out, as first a fire truck and then a police car went by on the overpass, making it fairly clear what was up. As I neared the light, the ambulance drove off. The damage to the cars didn't look that bad, but I only glanced, since otherwise I would've probably been part of a similar tableau myself.
After that, got my groceries, made my way through the construction zone that is Nyberg near I-5 right now, and fled home. It is entirely too hot here. Not agonizingly so, but my laptop is running warm, and I have been irritable, spacy, touchy, and a bit too warm. Changing into cooler clothes helped, and I've been drinking plenty, but I sincerely hope we don't have July or August heat waves proportional to normal temperatures for those months the way this one is to normal April temps!
So, I found out when I left work a bit before four. It was 86 in the sun, and you don't want to know what it was in the car. But oh, walking out that door, the flowering bushes along the walk filling the air with the heady perfume that only comes out when the heat is really there, the smell of fresh-cut grass, the weight of the heat on your skin, beyond tolerable for me and yet still pleasant in its own way, the last of sun-heat on your skin when you step out of the shade, the lazy summer feel missing only the buzzing of the bees (none to be heard). The stillness, the vivid colors, the green of the grass so bright, the sky too pale to look at comfortably, and not a cloud marring it to achieve that softened hue.... The interior of the car smelling of faintly warmed plastic, neither pleasant nor unpleasant precisely, but unmistakably the scent of a car in summer....
Then I turned the air conditioning on full and that was bliss as well, the chill indulged within the warmth of the day.
Stopping at the store was not what I would call fun. I decided to go to Fred Meyer's to have more options in most things (and less with my milk - stupid store carries quarts of every single type of lactose-free milk except the one I want, the fat-free - but oh well). I should have seen the backup and fled, but the Tualatin exit often backs up. Considering one lane goes left and two go right, it usually clears out again pretty quickly, but if I'd thought, I would have remembered it was earlier than I usually go by and perhaps reconsidered....
There was an accident on Nyberg, just right of the ramp, partially blocking the rightmost lane (halfway) so that traffic had to merge and separate to get around it. It took several light cycles to get up there. It was obvious long before then that the exit was a bad idea - my first complete stop was well, well back of the actual exit, still in the exit-only lane. But you couldn't get out of it because the main traffic was zipping along and you were at a standstill, so I stuck it out, as first a fire truck and then a police car went by on the overpass, making it fairly clear what was up. As I neared the light, the ambulance drove off. The damage to the cars didn't look that bad, but I only glanced, since otherwise I would've probably been part of a similar tableau myself.
After that, got my groceries, made my way through the construction zone that is Nyberg near I-5 right now, and fled home. It is entirely too hot here. Not agonizingly so, but my laptop is running warm, and I have been irritable, spacy, touchy, and a bit too warm. Changing into cooler clothes helped, and I've been drinking plenty, but I sincerely hope we don't have July or August heat waves proportional to normal temperatures for those months the way this one is to normal April temps!
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