Out Wendover.

Even though the radar says no, says it's all out east, or even just barely, barely east, like so barely east that if I got in the truck and drove ten miles down Wendover Avenue I'd be in the rain, which makes me crazy, I still say it looks like rain here, right here, like we might get a second round to build on top of us instead of out on Wendover or out anywhere else that's not here. All those other zips and zones. It did rain the other night after I begged it to, but not in any kind of way other than to wet the street up by the stop sign just enough to make the traffic sound interesting. July 30. Two inches or so under for the month. The plants look like it, too. The wind's blowing the pokeweed around out there, and it's graying over, and it's getting my hopes up—I want to eat tomatoes again—and so what we can go with here at ANYLF is that if it rains, we'll be happy, deeply so, and if it doesn't, we can be justifiably upset, which I think is next to godliness. Or: If it doesn't rain, it'll be damn near time to drag out the golden calf, see if that thing listens any better.

There's also yet another little burst of energy back towards the foothills, so even if this round of outrage doesn't net us any precip, maybe, just maybe, at some point tonight we'll get something out of all this.

La Vieja's mowing her lawn. I'm going to take that as a sign that she thinks it may soon enough rain.

It is damned hot out there, friends and fans of weather, and if it were any other thirty-day stretch I'd summon some kind of more serious lament, but as it's deep July and nearly dreaded August and and as also this heat brings the Black-eyed Susans into full bloom, I'll say only that I recommend canned beer of the very, very inexpensive variety. If you have to walk the dogs, do it early in the morning and again after dark. Hole up in the darker corners of your rooms. Find some big messy novel to read. Don't take too much advice from any one source.