Summer is here with nary a spring. It's only taken me the entire 13 years of my confinement to this area to grasp that, on the ModocPlateau, there is no spring. The snows and freezes sublime directly into punishing heat and lightblast, desiccating wind.

But no matter. Yesterday Husband helped me raise the grubby fiberglass awning over Sylvia's long south window, and now it's not unpleasant in here at midday, until time for me to leave anyway and tend to The House.

I sit with my volumes and papers heaped around and watch the line of dark-blue prayer-flags flap in the quickening air. I can't read the Sanskrit on them, so I am ignorant of what it is we pray for. From time to time a paperwasp settles on the cloth there for a moment as it passes through.

From time to time, too, a yellowjacket enters the trailer and bumbles deeply at me and exits again, so I won't forget who's in charge.

Got the ambient noises going on the speaker, catGreta stretching in deep sleep at my elbow.