The weather for the past week has been brutally hot and humid; not as bad as the west coast, but pretty miserable for an average Maryland summer. Saturday was hot enough that after a 2-mile hike with the dog, I felt like doing absolutely nothing around the house. Seeking air conditioning, I decided to try and return my Gap jeans at a Gap Factory store about 15 minutes away from here, and was annoyed to learn they don’t accept returns from the parent brand at the factory store. I’m gonna have to travel further to get my money back.

Finn was off with a friend so Jen and I spent time together with Hazel doing some light shopping. While we were in the hardware store, the first in a line of thunderstorms started hammering the roof of the building, so we took a moment to sit with our nervous dog and then hightailed it to the car during a lull. It poured on us all the way back, and at exactly the same time on the road down into Ellicott City, it dawned on us both that this might not be the safest way home. We detoured up onto Route 40 and made it home safely; Catonsville only had a light sprinkle while areas to the east and west of us were flooded. To celebrate cheating death, we binged all six episodes of Loki until bedtime.

Sunday was much cooler due to the storm, so I was a lot more motivated. After looking over the compressor and unplugging all the other items on that circuit, I fired it up, painted the shutters white, and hung them back on the house. It’s nice to have them up but I don’t think the color is working for us. We’ve ruled out red, as we don’t want this place looking like a giant USA-themed birthday cake. I suggested gray to Jen and she seemed to like the idea, so I’ll do some Photoshop renders and see if I can mock up a shade we like.

I then put a ladder up and sprayed out almost all of the rest of the siding. There’s one place at the edge of the east wall I can’t reach—my ladders aren’t tall enough—that I’ll have to hit with a roller from the roof of the bathroom. I was able to scrape and paint most of the siding on that eave with pole attachments but I have to move to the back wall to get the inside.

This morning I got an email from UMBC that said they are going to disable my account, as I am no longer an employee of the university. I can’t say that I was hopeful they would ask me to teach a new class—or actually interested in doing so—but it’s kind of a robotic way to close that chapter of my professional career.