Late Spring Is Here

It's late spring, maybe early summer, here in the Coachella Valley. The jasmine (which is think is Carolina jessamine; it's not star jasmine) is covered with fragrant blooms and the white gardenias are blooming robustly. We have a jasmine vine out by the outer door (that opens into the courtyard) and another by the front door, so visitors are greeted with sweetness.

It's been fairly cool here, in the 80's, until yesterday. Today the high is predicted to be 102° and we've had the a/c on since lunch. I just hope it'll cool down enough to open the windows at bedtime. I'd rather sleep with open windows than with the a/c.

The struggle with the halogen reading lamp is finally over. The first bulbs I bought were the right shape and voltage, but the base pins were too wide. I don't like bayonet mount bulbs anyway and this didn't make me like them any better. I put my husband to work combing the Web to find the right bulb. First, though, we measured the pins carefully. He not only came up with them but found them for $2 each. Great deal, except the site had a minimum $10 S&H fee. So he ordered two of them. That brought the price down to about what the supermarket charges.

I stole the replacement halogen reading lamp he'd bought as a stop gap. It wasn't a great substitute, because the arm is shorter than the original one and it only has an on-off switch, not a dimmer. These made it not very good as a bed-side lamp. However, they're not a problem for a chair-side lamp, so it's now perched right beside the chair in my office. I expect it to be a great knitting lamp.