There have been helicopters flying over town all day. Usually, when helicopters fly back and forth it is because there is a fire somewhere. They've been heading east, across the river, and returning a few minutes later. I don't see or smell any smoke, but the breeze is coming mostly from the south today. April— even late April— is awfully early for fire season to begin, but as it's been a fairly dry year it wouldn't be too surprising.
If there is a fire, we could get lucky, as there's a chance of rain tonight and for the next three days, and it's definitely going to be cooling off for a few days. Sufficient rain would douse any small fires, but this time of year there's always the risk of lightning accompanying any storm, and that could start new fires. Any respite from the heat will be brief, in any case, as a full-on, summery heat wave is expected next week, and temperatures could top 90 degrees. This has been a terribly short spring.
Tomorrow I'm supposed to go get my teeth scraped again. I'm not looking forward to it. A piece broke off of a crowned molar a couple of months ago, and I'm sure the dentist will want to replace it, but there is no money available. I could forgo the fire insurance on the house this year, but I don't want to do that. It would be especially stupid after such a dry winter. The cleaning itself is apt to be unpleasant, as my teeth keep getting more sensitive as my gums recede. It's another one of the perks of aging, like failing memory and increasingly inflexible joints.
Despite failing memory, last night I remembered to make iced tea for this afternoon, but I forgot to make new ice cubes, and discovered too late that the old ones had been devoured by the refrigerator's automatic defrost mechanism. Ah, well. There'll be no need for iced tea tomorrow, as it will be chilly again, and I probably wouldn't be wanting to drink anything cold after the tooth cleaning anyway. But at least now I'll have fresh ice cubes in time for next week's heat wave— or I will as long as the intervening storm doesn't cause a lengthy power outage and melt them, and the town doesn't get burned down before then.
Let's see if this will post. Down Right Now suggests that it will.