The rain forecast is actually getting better. It's up to a 70 chance of showers Monday afternoon, and an 89% chance of rain Tuesday, and then a 40% chance of showers Wednesday morning. Tuesday is supposed to have a high of only 66, and then drop down to a low of 52 that night. It's a good thing I didn't pit the electric blanket back into the closet yet, as it looks like I'll be needing it. The furnace will probably have to run a bit too. It could be like a little afterburp of winter.
Thursday wasn't anything like winter. I didn't spend very much time sitting in the back yard even after it got shady, as the heat was unpleasant. The people who moved in nest door have installed a large red umbrella in their back yard, where the previous tenant had that more substantial device with four metal legs supporting a tent-like canvas roof. That device got buffeted around pretty badly by the wind a few times. I'm expecting that the red umbrella might actually go flying away. Maybe it will land in my part of the yard. Of course it might be attached to a table of some sort that would hold it down. I can't see over the fence, so I don't know.
The mockingbird did some singing today, though I didn't stay out in the heat to listen, and it wasn't very near anyway. It probably found a shadier spot to hang out in, somewhere down the trail. The trail is getting busier again. I heard quite a few people passing along it today, some on bikes and some on foot. I'm probably within ten feet of more people over the course of an afternoon when I just sit in my back yard than when I go to a store. But they are not visible to me, just disembodied voices and footsteps. I sometimes wish the apartment had a second floor with a balcony, so I could watch the activity on the trail instead of just hearing it. But that would probably spoil the mystery. Plus I would surely end up falling down the stairs and lay there for days until I finally died in misery from dehydration. Maybe I should just get a periscope.