The poor person's air conditioning

So. It got up to 104 degrees today. It's supposed to hit at least 100 tomorrow. No a/c in the house, no a/c at my PT office job, no a/c on the bus. It's been a lot more tolerable than I would've expected, but really, I gotta maximize the complainance potential of this scenario, right?

What do you do to stay cool in a situation like this? There's massive hydration, of course. The wearing of natural fibers (I was wearing a rayon slip under my skirt on Monday and boy o boy did I regret that). Eating cold foods (pasta salad, green salads, fruit). But nothing takes the edge off the end of a hot day like:



The summer cocktail. This is a rather poorly-rendered picture of a gin and tonic. Summer cocktails are great in that they don't need lots of booze, and therefore can stretch your alcohol for a lengthy period of time. Lemonade cocktails are also great--lemonade with vodka, with strawberry vodka, with a few splashes of bourbon--good stuff. Gives you a sip of summer, lets you chill out after a hard day, and stretches your liquor cabinet. If you have a fave summer drink, feel free to toss your preferences in the comments.

Blackberries--not the digital kind

Whoa. Um...ok, way, way too long since I've posted. Eep. Time to get back in the saddle with this baby.

Of course, summer in the PNW makes that pretty easy to do. There's lots of free entertainment to be had (hiking, taking walks, hanging out at the fantabulous public library) and hopefully those are easy things to do all over the country. But I gotta say, foraging is pretty great out here. In the last 3 days I've picked about 4 pounds of these:

They're coming into their own, but as you can probably see, a lot of 'em are still green...so they'll be ripening for the next month or so. Plenty of blackberries whenever I want them. I've made 4 cups into a cobbler:

A very, very easy one courtesy of a FB friend. I love FB way too much for my own good. 

And muffins are next on the list. 

Meanwhile, there's also a cherry plum tree in our driveway. They're kinda small-looking to be plausible plums, but they're definitely edible (and tasty):

So I'm gonna try to take full advantage of the free fruit. 

Meanwhile I've seen chammomile growing wild along the side of the road. I'd love to harvest and dry it to make tea, but it doesn't seem to be blooming before it dies. It needs to flower first before being dried for tea, am I right?