This hiatus has been brought to you by the letters R and R

Yes, dear readers, I have returned. Really, I had not gone anywhere, but had decided to take a week off to finish up some other projects, catch up on sleep (always cherished with my absurdly busy schedule) and spend some quality Mothers' Day time with the Corvallist offspring. Thanks for the emails asking where I was. It was a rather pleasant surprise to receive those queries, so in the future, I will try to mention planned absences ahead of time.

So, the big news today, of course, was the bloody hot weather. Weather service put the official high at 92 degrees at 7 p.m., breaking the previous record high of 86 degrees for this particular date, set back in 1922. It's supposed to sink back down to the 80s for the remainder of the week, then into the 70s again, and maybe even rain this weekend. I hope it does. I don't mind a gradual climb to the expected higher temps in July, but a 20-degree change from one day to the next seems almost cruel.