Our neighbor's father died last night after a brief but ravaging illness.

The usual laughter rising over the fence has been missing the last few weeks, and I suspect it will be some time before it returns.

An earlier thunderstorm cleaned the air, as they do in Jersey, and the azure dusk sky marked the last few hours of June. My tiny pond was already wrapped in gray shadows, everything but the sky bled of color except for the occasional cool fire of a lightning bug.

The end of June marks

What are you doing?

Nothing.

Outwardly nothing.

Inwardly, I'm being with the rain.

Friends ask me what I do at our summer place. I usually give a fairly flippant answer. We swim, drink tea, eat, and sit around and talk about what we are going to eat next.

But it usually takes me about a week to switch into Matinenda time.

It's best explained that my logical brain turns off, and my sensation brain turns...

Intruso

Chapter Fifteen

The day Kalila died was perfect, right up 'til they found her dead in her stall.

--I like you! Bethany said to him that hot August morning after he'd been working with the horse for about an hour. This was convenient, because Gabilan liked Bethany too. A lot. She had brought a glass of lemonade down to the paddock.

--Hey! she said, smiling. Such beautiful teeth. Gotta take a break for a minute. Here. ...

When you think of Hyundai, you think economy and value; the words "speed" and "handling" rarely come to mind. Hyundai is trying, rather desperately, to change this. In the last few years the Korean car company has stepped up its efforts at developing a true drivers car, and they've been getting...kinda-sorta close. The Tiburon, which was Hyundai's first attempt at a sports car, slowly got bigger and better as time progressed. Regardless, the end product was still a 2008 model that