27 years

Ever since I moved to Tennessee at age 11, I have complained vehemently about the how cold the ground water is. It gets hot here in the summer -- and muggy -- but never hot enough to warm up the ground so a person can play in the garden hose without freezing.

In Georgia (after the Bertha Upshaw Clubhouse closed the only semi-public pool in Social Circle), I would play in the garden hose for hours. But not in Tennessee. Oh, no. The water is just too dang cold.

Several years ago, I bought a toy for my children that attaches to the garden hose and sprays water into the air. I would have loved a thing like that when I was young. My kids hardly played with it, so it still works. As they've gotten older, I've sold off many big yard-toy type things, big turtle-shaped sandboxes and giant mountains that Matchbox cars fly down and a whole host of play yards with baby toys affixed to them -- but this garden-hose-water-squirting toy has remained a fixture in our garage for those rare days that are so hot the kids want to *try* to play in the garden hose.

Finally, yesterday, it was so hot that I attached that thing to the garden hose (after washing my gorgeous Prius) and played in the water with Woodrow.

It was really fun. Tepid water is great stuff.

Other than that spot of fun, all I can report is that I have deadlines and my manicure is perfect. My manicure is so perfect that I figure I will break a nail today. I'll probably break it down to the quick, too. I leave for Wisconsin on Wednesday, and it would be nice to have a perfect manicure there -- but I sincerely doubt these hands will still look like a million bucks by the time I climb on the plane. If I *do* have nice nails when I climb on that plane, they won't survive five minutes. I'm a white-knuckle flyer.

And many thanks to Emily for patiently futzing with the water-spraying-thingamabob for my photo today.