Today was...muggly...kinda tropical...nostalgic.

We've been blessed recently around these central parts of the great state of California. The stifling 100+ degree temperatures we experienced last year (over 30 days straight) have not appeared...yet. Oh, we've had few days around 100, quite a few in the mid 90's, but not a long stretch topping the century mark. Where we live, in the northern part of the San Joaquin Valley, we do get the Delta Breeze most every evening. It's kind of like the trade winds in Hawaii, only it is more blustery and generally smells mostly like cow shit and cow urine. You know, that choking stench of freshly expelled methane? There are a lot of dairy farms in and amongst the almond orchards near our abode.

My dairyman ex-father-in-law used to say the "smell of cow dung smelled like money". It was a statement he made whenever we visited one of his son's dairies in Idaho. My daughter Jen and son Jimmy would lament, "Eeeww...this place smells like poop!" Then, their grandfather would make that statement in a Robert Duvall sort of delivery, "I love the smell of cow shit in the morning. It smells like...like...money!"

Today, however, the evening Delta Breezes did not blow. The air has been still as a dead calf in a shit lagoon all day. Couple that with near 100 degree temps, overly high humidity...and 'ya got one helluva stinky, muggly day and evening! We were treated to a fabulous sunset though, what we could see of it over the neighbor's houses from the backyard. I was even too lazy and sticky and hot to grab my camera and snap a few shots of the blazing red clouds just beyond the neighbor's tile roof. It just didn't seem worth the effort.

The tropics revisited is what it really feels like. I remember the first time I stepped off our patrol plane when we went to the Philippines. The humid air and heat was so thick you could cut it with a fork. It was even difficult filling your lungs with "fresh air" when it's that stifling. Sometimes you wished that the long flight could have lasted longer. And every smell and minute odor in the air is magnified even more, especially in the middle of the night. The sometimes intoxicating smell of burning jet fuel fills the runway. The odors of the nearby breakwater facing Manila Bay...seaweed and saltwater and sulfur. The stench of burning garbage and open sewers coming from the town of Cavite City just a click or two from the hangers. The faint smell of sweet, cheap perfume and even cheaper beer wafting its way onto the base from the bars, saloons, clubs, and whorehouses just a few feet from the front gate of the base. And that smell of shit mixed with the fires of burning refuse on the edge of town...the smell was ever present in that part of the world. It reminded me that I had made it back from another mission, safe and sound. That I had earned my Navy flight pay one more time.

At least now when I smell that smell, and feel that feeling of thick, hot, unpleasant tropical humidity...I can close the door...turn on the air conditioning...and not worry about where I will be tomorrow.

Flatulent cows can't hurt you.