T doesn't like air conditioning, so I only turn it on when conditions have reached the brutal stage, which wasn't quite the case last night. Still, even with a fan running, the bedroom air was sticky and hot, and I did not expect to immediately tumble into the sleep of a satisfied boulder. But somehow I did, and this morning I'm blinky and groggy and squinty, as if I've just rolled out of a winter's hibernation. . . .

I break off this dozy commentary to report that my tiny street is suddenly full of firetrucks. Something seems to be happening on Saunders Street, the next block over, something that involves five trucks and ten or so men walking around casually in their gear and blocking all traffic, if there were any traffic. But now two of the trucks have driven away, leaving the rest of the guys to deal with whatever non-emergency this is, and now the remaining trucks are leaving as well, all of them choosing to drive the wrong way down our narrow one-way street . . . a brief and exciting (and apparently benign) interlude, suspenseful chiefly because firetrucks are the vehicle version of our giant maples, which is to say they are way too big for the situation and seem likely to roll over houses and cars without noticing, but magically never do.

Okay, well, that's over now. Back to whatever I was talking about before . . . I think I was maundering on about being dozy, but there's nothing like five firetrucks strobing their lights across the front yard to wake a person up.

It's Friday, and I'm expecting an editing project to reappear on my desk at some point today, and maybe we'll get news about the car loan, and I have to drive to the post office and I have to haul recycling to the curb and maybe mow grass in the backyard, and I think I'll make something with shrimp in it for dinner, and I'm worried that something bad is about to happen to one of the characters in the Erdrich novel I'm reading. As you can see from this sentence, my day could unfold in any number of ways, but at least I'm pretty sure that none of my neighbors is on fire.