Yes, that's an ice cream cake in the photo above. Today is our second consecutive day with temps at least 100 degrees again. I thought we were done with that for a little while, but apparently Mother Nature has other ideas. Before I went to bed last night, we already had a heat advisory and excessive heat watch in place for today through Tuesday. So gross. I wouldn't even try to bring ice cream home from the store right now, though, because the heat would have it melted by the time I made the short drive. I'm really ready for fall to get here, but I'd settle for temps under 90 degrees for a week or two. It doesn't seem like that's going to happen any time soon, though, so I'll just stay inside as much as I can, water the tomatoes every day, and keep getting the stray cats who call our carport theirs fresh, cool water.
I was thinking the other day that we should have a virtual party for my birthday. I'm still pondering the logistics of it, but it would be over on the Facebook page as we've done previously. When I've decided, I will post info here and probably send out a quick newsletter (are you signed up for my newsletters? I only usually send them out when I have news or an event, so you won't be bombarded daily with email.) with the details as well.
I have a quick snippet for you this week from Protecting Medusa.
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Philomena parked beside her mother’s house. She’d arrived first, and she needed to get dinner on in a hurry. Once Jason got home, she’d be too distracted to focus on cooking.
She went in the back door, balancing a grocery bag while she reset the alarm, then hit the light switch with her elbow as she continued into the kitchen.
She took her mother’s cast iron skillet from its hook over the counter and put it on the stove, turning the heat to high and dropping in some ground beef before she shed her coat. As she put away the rest of the groceries, the meat began to sizzle.
She rolled up her sleeves and dug a spatula out of the utensil drawer, but froze when she heard a creak from upstairs. She waited, then shook her head. It was a hundred year-old farmhouse.
She stirred the beef in the pan, adding chopped onions she’d picked up at the store--not out of laziness but because she knew she needed to move quickly after three days away and with an excitable six-year-old on his way home. She could take time tomorrow to do her own prep work for dinner.
The sound came again from upstairs. She set the spatula on the spoon rest and turned the flame under her pan down to low, then tugged up the hem of her long skirt to pull her dagger from its leather sheath on her thigh.
A loud thud reached her ears, and her heart beat faster.
Dear Gods, someone really was in the house.
She crept up the back steps, keeping to the edges where she knew her weight wouldn’t make the stairs creak, the smooth handle of her long knife comforting in her sweat-damp hand.
More thumping, accompanied by running water.
She frowned when she got to the top of the steps, wincing as something hit the porcelain bathtub, followed by muffled cursing.
She stuck her head around the corner, but the partially-closed bathroom door at the other end of the hall blocked her view. All she could see were shadows.
Two people? In her mother’s bathroom? She wished she’d grabbed the phone on her way up so she could call the police. No, she should’ve called before coming upstairs. Too late now.
More thumping and a crash.
Her jaw clenched, and she stepped into the hallway, her pulse pounding in her ears.
“I’ve called the police,” she lied, moving slowly along the hall. Frigid air drifted toward her. Either the bathroom window was open, or something was seriously wrong with the furnace. She frowned, holding tighter to her knife.
A dark blur went out the window, and her eyes widened. It was quite a drop to the ground, even with all the snow mounded below from the big storms so far this winter.
When a large, naked man with a gun went to look out the window, she froze in the middle of the hall, her dagger shoulder high.
Naked.
She swallowed, and then he turned around. Her lungs stopped working.
“Hello, Philomena. Have I ever told you how much I love a woman who can handle a blade?” He caught the edge of the door and pulled it wide open.
She’d know that voice anywhere, and that face, even if she’d only seen him in photos. Ryder Ware, Jason’s father.
And wow, was she seeing him in person.
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Now I'm going to go dig into some revisions on the final book in the "Medusa's Daughters Trilogy" and think about what to do for dinner that doesn't involve turning on a stove or oven.
What's your go-to dinner when Mother Nature has turned up the temps outside to a ridiculous level? I'd love to hear!
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