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1. It's been blazing hot here lately, getting up to the 3-digit numbers Fahrenheit. And to think that it's only June. It's so hot in the desert that planes are forbidden to take off. Memo: don't change planes on summer afternoons in Phoenix or Vegas.

2. Accordingly, I bought a small watermelon at the store. It wasn't until I cut it open that I discovered that it was a variety with yellow pulp, which I'd never had before. It tasted like any other watermelon, but looking at it was disorienting.

3. It's so hot that the cats are thiiiis long. Maia has been playing dead on the carpet, though it'd probably be cooler on the linoleum.

4. Speaking of the linoleum, it's been the subject of Pippin thinking outside the box, as it were. We don't know why he's doing it. It's not necessarily associated with the box needing to be cleaned, and we've had him medically tested for any physical problems.

5. The word before the Georgia election was that even a narrow loss would be a grand repudiation of the Republicans. The word after the narrow loss is that it's a disaster for the Democrats. My own take is that a continuing series of narrow losses won't cut it.