A slew of very hot days are coming up, starting today. The nights will be getting uncomfortably warm by Saturday. There is also a red flag warning for fire throughout the region. Humidity is low, the brush and grass are dry, temperatures are high, and there are strong winds expected. Those are circumstances under which a small brush fire can explode into a major conflagration in minutes. A few years ago I'd have said such a fire would be unlikely to invade Chico, but after seeing part of Redding, a big chunk of Santa Rosa, and virtually all of Paradise wiped out over the last four years, I'm not so sure anymore. Pretty much all of California is probably a lot more vulnerable than we once imagined.
I'm getting low on some crucial grocery items, and need to arrange a trip to a store this week, unless I want to try to make do with what Trader Joe's and Grocery Outlet have available, which I don't. But I don't look forward to going in the heat. It doesn't help that known coronavirus infections in the county have popped up to 88 from 76 in the last couple of days. And that's before most of the transmissions that might have taken place at the demonstrations over the last several days have registered. Around here at least, summer's pandemic is likely to be worse than spring's was, and fall's is likely to be worse than summer's. I don't even want to think about what could happen next winter.
If my recent sleep disruptions continue, though, maybe I can nap through most of whatever is coming up. I wish I could hibernate through the rest of 2020, and maybe 2021 too. But then I might wake up to a world so changed it would be unrecognizable— and not in the good way I'd like.
But right now I've been awake for sixteen hours, and I'm getting really tired. I'm going to go eat some chocolate and read myself to sleep. Maybe I'll get to the farmer's market tomorrow and maybe I won't. To be honest, I really don't care a whole lot either way. And I'll probably forget it's happening anyway.