First off, the bad news: I have, as of tonight, run out of my stock of Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane green tea. Tragedy, right? My favorite decaf tea, and it’s seasonal. Now it’s true that I could very sweetly ask my friend who lives just miles from the Celestial Seasonings headquarters (she’s the one who introduced me to the flavor to begin with) to buy me a few boxes the next time she’s there, but she’s going to be away from Colorado for a month, so I wouldn’t get it until August, at which point I will be in Iceland. So September is probably the earliest I will be able to enjoy this tea once I finish this cup.

Sad face!

Holiday tea: Difficult to find in summer, for some strange reason.

(And yes, I know I can go online and buy it, but despite the fact that Colorado and Nebraska are next door neighbors, Celestial Seasonings ships their product out of their warehouse in California. So if I want to get Candy Cane Lane out of season and reduce the carbon imprint by even a smidge, I’ll have to wait until my friend is headed to C.S.’s headquarters.)

In the meantime, I have found simple recipes that even I can follow for rice pudding, coffee, and cookies involving cardamom. The rice pudding is fantastic! It’s been too hot for baking, though, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to drink hot beverages until tonight, so the cookies and coffee will have to wait.

On a more bookish note, I finished Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale today. I loved it! It is beautifully written, with memorable characters and antagonists who are easy to both despise and pity, with an ending that is both sad and hopeful. And the Russian fairytales that were incorporated into the story were fantastic, with both their good and evil sides portrayed believably. I will have a more in-depth review later on.

Now that I’ve finished with The Bear and the Nightingale, I can focus on The Black Company and figure out if I really like the book or not.

It’s been hot this week. Not like in Arizona, where temperatures have been so high that airplanes can’t fly in Phoenix, but hot enough that I just want to sit next to a fan on high with an endless glass of lemonade and books about snow to keep me company. Fortunately, the heat is set to break tonight, as an incoming cold front is set to bring the temperature down to about 75°F (24 C). Far more tolerable! And with Shakespeare in the park and book club scheduled for Sunday, it should be a fantastic weekend!

This has been in my head all day, though:

I’m not sure whether to attribute it to the heat or not, but my neighborhood has been positively swarming with fireflies these last few weeks. Though the past several evenings have been hot, sticky, and occasionally plagued with mosquitoes, walking through a cloud of fireflies at twilight is well worth the discomfort.