Unconnected thoughts

I want to lobby our local meterologists to remove "severe" from all weather warnings. Thus far in 2010, every weather system moving through Nashville fits that definition - a string of 20-degree days that lingered until March, the first major snowfall in seven years, the flooding, the Houston-level heat and humidity. We don't get light, refreshing rain - Nashville gets 3-6 inches in a furious downpour. If we accept that all weather is severe, the sooner we can move with our lives and not act surprised when Nashville receives an exceptionally hot, muggy August. But more and more, spring and fall are slim windows bringing just a week or two of genuinely

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As much as I want to swear off heat complaints, I have never before felt so drained during summer. I barely ran all summer, and some days I struggled to leave bed. Humidity saps energy, but I can point to days where I lumbered through tasks and could have crawled into any dark corner for a nap. There are days when routine items seem beyond my grasp. None of that helps knowing the Columbus 1/2 Marathon lies two short months away, and I have barely trained.

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Nashville seems to grow dumber when it rains. Seriously. For all the severe rain we receive, this town loses all ability to function. They cannot be blamed for all the rain-induced problems; the bedrock lies just a few feet below the surface in Middle Tennessee, so any major storm quickly overwhelms the sewers and floods the roads. But that should cause people to drive a little slower, not break out in hysteria. Yesterday's downpour nearly equaled the May floods for intensity - albeit, only for a few minutes - but motorists dutifully drove their cars into ditches and gawked at the mysterious water squirting from the sky. Every main road hosted accidents of the eye-rolling variety.

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The giant spider inhabiting the porch disappeared last night, the second time it vanished when I turned on the porchlight early in the evening. Perhaps the constant heat of the light disturbs it. I refused to kill the arachnid, which resembled a mini-Shelob - you should see this monster cocoon a fly that ambled into its web. When I leave the porchlight off, the spider wards off all other bugs. More importantly, I haven't stumbled into the web when returning from a late night at the wine store. When that inevitably happens, he's a stain on the brick.

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Finally reading the Harry Potter books, despite the ribbing my literary friends have given me. Amid other reading, including Blockade Billy by Stephen King, the Lunatic Express and T.C. Boyle's Talk Talk, the last a book I've been reading on and off for 18 months, I finished the first three Potter books and started the fourth. When it comes to her prose Rowling is no Faulkner , but walks a delicate line between writing for children's and the surprisingly dark material within. Wizardry supplies all kinds of deus ex machinas, but they wouldn't matter it the story had no substance.

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Wine store nonsense #1: Twenty-something customer requests a light, fruity Bordeaux More interestingly, he wanted a Bordeaux without Merlot. Good luck. Given that description, it makes perfect sense that he bought sake.

Wine store serendipity #1: One of our favorite reps brought in the local contact for Von Schleinitz, a winery making especially awesome, well-priced Riesling from the Moselle Valley in Germany. We haven't carried their dry estate Riesling, but boy, we need to. The gulf between one, three and five percent residual sugars in those wines was immense. As a hater of sweetness, I will stick with the 1 percent.

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Today marks my third consecutive 15-hour work day, and the fifth straight closing shift at the store. If this falls below my usual quality for blogging, you can stop wondering why.