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Definitely strange to think that there is fire under the ground.

I don't like cold soups except for gazpacho which I agree is like salsa, but I like salsa. Funny story which I don't think I told you guys. The day we got to Madrid my SIL and I went to the store to get basics for the kitchen. She grabbed a carton of milk for coffee in the morning. I made my coffee the next day and started to put milk in it but it was dark! I looked more closely at the carton and saw the tomatoes on it - it was gazpacho. Needless to say I did not drink that cup of coffee. At the store we went to they only had shelf stable milk - not cartons in the refrigerated section. Those cartons were all gazpacho. It was actually fairly tasty though.

With a wind shift, we are now at an air quality index of 58, which is "moderate"ly bad. An improvement over yesterday's 190! Sedona by comparison is 34 today.

I was reading about the Canadian fires yesterday and came upon a not so fun fact - some of them have been burning since 2023. They smolder underground over winter and flare up in the spring. The article called them "zombie fires". I have heard of roots smoldering and reigniting in CA fires, but burning for 2 years and over winter is crazy to me.

My dad seems to be feeling better. I wish I knew what the answer was. But I fear there is no answer and this is the trade-off for him still being with us with the artificial urinary tract system he's left with. He's a trooper for sure.

Today I will clean out some closets to find Goodwill items. I figure the architect will need to look at said closets and I would rather not have her look at them as they are now... Given I don't live here full time, there's not a ton in them, but it's mostly things I didn't know where else to put, which always ends up looking like the hodgepodge it is. I also need to do some general cleaning.

Tonight I'm making a brothy tomato and rice soup I saw on NYT Cooking and grilled cheese sandwiches. It's only going to be in the 60s today, so a summery soup sounded good. I loathe cold soups (gazpacho, I'm looking at you - might as well eat salsa with a spoon), so this seemed like a lighter, warm, summer version.

I also need to figure out how to get a couple of plants out of a bed. One is a small deer eaten lilac and the other is a stubborn grass mound and neither wants to budge even with a sharp spade. This is where a strong husband would come in handy!

Off to find out where Kirby wandered to... take care all

Diane, as soon as I write a paper list, I take a photo of it with my phone. Until COVID, I kept all lists on my phone, but then went back to paper when I didn't want to touch my phone in public.

Temperature fluctuations like that are difficult to deal with. Overheated one day and cold the next. Yuck!

I put my lists on my phone, including packing lists for various trips which I keep and copy for trips of a similar length and type. DH is a paper list maker and often loses them LOL. The advantage of a list is so things aren't forgotten, but for me the disadvantage is that once I write it down it is as if my mind purges the information and I can't recall it without the list (so recreating it would be very difficult).

Good luck with that meeting. Wine afterwards may be needed.