An idea.

Got up around 95F today. Worked at the Manor, out around the gate, replacing the gold violas I ripped out yesterday with scarlet verbenas.

To give you some idea how big this estate is: in order to get water to the plants at the front gate at the end of the long gravel driveway, we had to hook six fifty foot hoses together, starting at the house, and it was only barely long enough. Being so very hot I only put in three hours there before tiring out and coming home. Of course I thought we were going out later, so I wanted to freshen up and all. But really would prefer these days I think just to stay out on the job since when I get home it's going to be just about as hot, only without the sun, and I won't be making any money lazing around the house.

I must remember sunscreen for tomorrow.

Charles wanted to go out tonight but thank god it didn't work out that way. Not that I wouldn't have enjoyed it. But who wants to live in bars? We both wound up worn out. Last thing I need is to spend more than one night a week in the bars, even if I am drinking in relative moderation. We went to Foxes last night, had some really good conversations with Sid (the manager) and a bunch of other guys who go way back. Unless I work there, of course. Which maybe I will. I'd love to work at Foxes. Might just find myself actually enjoying the work and might even wind up being passably good at it. Drinks in bars are outrageously pricey. Of course you're not just paying for the drink when you go there. I guess maybe as the month wears on he's worried where his own rent's coming from, because we're finally starting to get back into the swing of things. Only a matter of a few days 'til I get enough money to pay my rent and bills and maybe even eat for a few days, I suspect. I've got to get some other steady income going, just to be fair to me and him and everybody all around. Maybe Foxes. Why not? I'd be as glad to work in the oldest gay bar in the southwest as any normal person would be I dunno I guess to work at a really well-established bank. Plus it'd be high energy, which I honestly enjoy more than the steady rhythms of planting in the ground, which seems to me a pleasant way to spend a day off, but maybe not so great a way to work.

Tomorrow morning we go to McMansion. Of course the owner's throwing another big pool party for 300 people and is panicking because she hasn't watered anything, so everything we planted last month will be dead and we'll just have to pull the same stunt we did last time: plant a ton of annuals in containers timed to look good in a few days' time before the heat destroys them utterly. Must be nice to be rich enough to be able to afford to be so dumb. Pay the faggots an outrageous sum to cover your ass, you breeder imbeciles; you know we are the only ones on earth who can pull off the impossible time and again. Then again, this is the attorney/shoplifter so I shouldn't be surprised. (Speaking of which -- the heat, not the shoplifter -- you should see what the sun did to my rosebush and fennel and yarrow and cardoon and petunias out front. I missed a single day of watering them sixteen times a day and they just all got flattened out just like a steamroller had rolled right over 'em.) Then at some point in the next few days we're going to have to work on the irrigation at the manor, since the plants around the gate are drying up. And by then Sissy should be back in town and there'll be work to be done there.

Have I confessed that I love Church's Chicken? Because I do. I know, it's a chain. Of course because of that it's been ages since I've eaten in one. But I was out late just now with precious little money when nothing else was open and there was Church's. Three dark pieces and a nifty little biscuit for 2.66. Yeah. Super fresh, so hot I had to wait 'til I got home to eat it. I love fried chicken. Plus I get to leave the bones out for the feral cats. Everybody's happy.