HEAT WAVE

We're working through our second heat wave in as many weeks, here in Southern California.  Forecasters say that we'll reach 100 degrees today.  My car thermometer was registering 103 degrees yesterday when I left the gym.  Predictably, there are wildfires raging already south of here, in San Diego County; remembering the great fire that started in Laguna Canyon in 1993, we are keeping our fingers crossed that Laguna Beach will be spared this year.

Is this the start of a summer of record heat in California?  There's no knowing.  But there are multiple reports of El Nino returning this year with a vengeance--that Pacific Ocean climate phenomenon that brings with it widespread weather-related disasters of all kinds, from the wildfires we fear hereabouts to hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic coast.

I am not good with the heat.  I was born and raised in a climate dominated by sometimes not so gentle mists and rain, so when the heat waves strike I tend to wilt.  This afternoon, we head down to Laguna Beach in the hope of finding it a few degrees cooler by the ocean; and weekend forecasts predict a cooling trend.  Let's hope they prove accurate.  Meantime, my attention wandered in this morning's meditation to the need to accept what is with equanimity--at least as much of it as I can muster.

Oh, and as a footnote... at a few minutes past six this morning when I opened the fridge to find the cans for George's breakfast (he likes to eat early!), one entire shelf fell out from its place in the door and dropped its contents on the kitchen floor--several jars of pickles, olives, capers, mustard, some of which shattered on contact with the floor.  A major clean-up job--and a reminder that disasters, small and large, are bound to happen.  And that, when they do, it's better to respond with equanimity than with anger, outrage, and panic.  And that, I was privileged to learn again, is easier said than done.