The first day of post-summer school summer vacation

Today is the first day of post-summer school summer vacation, so I just sat down from 3-4 hours of watering and gardening. My knees hurt. The sign of a good time having been had, you know, when you're sore all over and you've gotten something done. Trimmed a bunch of plants, transplanted some tiny seedlings, pulled a bunch of weeds. Watered a lot.

I seem to have some species of Africanized dandelion growing everywhere this year. They grow about three feet a second. You can blind them with a shot from a Baring pistol and then finish them off with a machete if you know what you're doing. The roots can crack a foundation. Anyway.

Time for a glass of water and to see what time I can waste on the computer. No appointments or deadlines today.

The kids asked for pancakes so I made some pancakes. Out of buttermilk. The buttermilk recipe tastes better. I asked them what they wanted to do today and they said in unison "Nothing!" They're Great Indoorsmen of the first order.

Set the thermostat higher again. The air conditioning came on at 75 and then again at 78... it seems comfortable in here, don't need the air on.

Gardened and watered. Cleaned up a bit.

The Salvation Army will collect the old ugly couch tomorrow. I'll be glad to see it go. Ordered a small couch for Cassidy's room from Ikea, no idea when that will be delivered.

Ate a turkey sandwich with a sliced tomato from the garden and a sliced red onion. How delicious.

Looking at a Canon camera on amazon.com yet again. I like my little pocket camera, but it would be nice to have a "real" camera again. Although I sure took a lot of BAD photos with the "real" film camera I bought for the Maui trip. I've never taken so many bad photos in my life. I ended up with one good picture of Bob. That's a LOT of bad pictures. The Fuji Film underwater cameras were fun and I had better luck with them. That would have been a fun trip if Diane had stayed home.

Tempted by the Canon camera. I wonder if it's realistic to expect Diane to repay the rent I paid for her? I'd rather have bought the camera instead of paying her rent.

Bank the money. For the kid's education, for future expenses. Take care of the kids. I certainly wish that I'd invested more than I did in Apple stock back when. Diane invested in Lucent. Mine was a better choice.

I have a list of publicly-traded firms in the death industry. Boomers will begin to croak sooner or later and need death industry services. I don't see how it can miss. If they don't want to be planted, they'll want to be burned to ashes. There's money to be made disposing of the corpses of baby boomers, they'll be dying off in recording numbers. Get in front of that. So INVEST in those companies NOW!!!! Get around to it.

The camera is still very tempting, photos are the only thing I'm keeping as I weed out all of my possessions. And kitchen tools. I need to edit my photos I've taken. I ordered a couple of hard drives to back my data up to. Send one to Mom to keep and one to Kelly and Bob or Toni and Scott to keep offsite, just in case. Make incremental backups of new photos and music. Try not to acquire or save anything else. Buying the hard drives seemed economical and more practical than backing up to DVDs. Back it all up. Go through that folder of clutter I have. Drawings can go in iPhoto. So I'll have iPhoto data and iTunes data. And that's about all. My web pages (such as they are) are a convenient place to stick things, like this blog. Better than having dozens of little text files scattered throughout my backup disks. All of which are in the garage, btw, waiting for the hard drives to arrive and be filled. Goodbye, backup disks.

Looking at a wardrobe to keep my stuff in instead of the closet, which is crowded. Might get around to that. Order that from Ikea and wait for them to deliver it. The Prius isn't up to the job, and I don't want to rent a truck to pick furniture up.

I'd also like to get some lumber delivered from Dixieline and build another planter or two. Very pleased with the planter that's there now. Looks great to see bright flowers right outside the laundry room door.

I'm thinking about clearing out the front garden area by the black gate and planting marigold seeds there. They seem to grow without any problems. I'd also ordered three "Bee Balm" plants from Burpee which ought to arrive eventually. I had those in mind for that area, near the fence.

The lawn could stand to be mowed, but I don't want to cut it too short again in the heat. I really like the lawn. I even like the giant monster crabgrass I find growing in the lawn.

What else is new? Not much. Sift through the remaining, final stuff in the tool chest. Scan in photos that I don't have in digital format. Scan in photos and negatives. Get rid of clutter one piece at a time until it's all gone at last.

Tuesday -- summer school is out at last for good

Gail from MDM called last night, she's not coming to visit Tim or whoever that guy is that took up with a girl half his age. The girl ought to know better, and Tim ought to be ashamed of himself. Fucking outside your generation is just not suave. Anything over about a three-year difference in ages is just too much of a difference.

Took the kids to Nickel City for about an hour. My head starts to throb after being in all that noise. They seemed to have a good time. Something to mark the end of summer school at last.

I'd like to assemble the beach gear and mount an expedition to the beach tomorrow. Pack some sandwiches and ice down some soda pop and make a day of it, at least as much of a day as the traffic will allow. Check the tides.

...

Not great until the end of next week. On the 10th high tide is about about one o'clock. The 11th 1:30 and the 12th 1:45. It's the most fun to build a sand castle with the tide coming in.

It would still be fun to go to the beach. Maybe drive to Encinitas and look around there. I've heard it's a nice place. Well, I heard that from a guy I talked with on the train to San Diego back in 1978... I'd never heard of Encinitas.

What else? Moved the old couch out of the house after it became apparent that there was no graceful way to move it into Cassidy's room. I ordered her a couch from Ikea that will be delivered at some point. Rearrange her room again.

Grilled some chicken last night, very tasty. Made some rice and vegetables for dinner along with the chicken. Baked a chocolate cake for dessert.

Going to do something with the leftover chicken tonight for dinner.

Stopped at the market with Cassidy this morning and bought milk and water and bread. She got a doughnut. I bought some vanilla yogurt and some more frozen blueberries. Making yogurt cheese and having a scoop or two of that with frozen blueberries is a delicious breakfast. Not too heavy.

What else? I'm pleased and excited that it's OFFICIALLY summer vacation now. For three weeks. I hope that Flynn is sufficiently motivated to do better in school and not be invited back to summer vacation. Wait and see.

Sunday

Made pancakes, washed the Prius, watered the lawn and front garden, took a shower, washed the inside of the windshield and the rear hatch... did two loads of dishes and I'm doing a load of laundry...

Tired. Busy morning. All the keyboarding and copying files has tweaked my left wrist again. If I had a wrist brace, I'd be wearing it.

Dodger game comes on in twenty minutes... might watch that and take a nap.

Probably going to make grilled chicken for dinner. Maybe I'll make some chicken tacos instead. Or maybe both. Start pizza dough to have for dinner tomorrow.

Really surprisingly tired. Glad to not have anything to do this afternoon. Bathe the mice later on. And I have a mountain of laundry to put away. Why do I let the laundry pile up at the put-it-away stage? Must be something about putting laundry away that I dislike.

Did a partial water change on both tanks last night. Rearranged the plants and rocks again. I really like the arrangement in the small tank. The arrangement in the large tank is ok but ugly. I'd like to be able to make a partial dinosaur skeleton out of clay and get it fired and glazed and fired again to use as tank decorations -- like there was a huge dinosaur skeleton partially buried in the tank, just a section of ribs and maybe an eye socket on the skull visible, like those clever alligator stepping stones that were around a while ago in catalogs, one was the head, then a back section as if it was swimming under your lawn. Very clever. I love things like that.

Tired. I ought to go put the laundry away, however.

That's what I ought to do...

Friday

Friday. Hooray. Monday and Tuesday are all that's left of summer school.

Picked Flynn up this afternoon and we went to Burger King (lousy food) and then to the bowling alley. It was fun. I actually hit the pins most of the time without using the bumpers too much... then we stopped @ Plough Boys and the butcher shop and then headed home.

Whacked the blower to get it to work. I had Sears out in the springtime to check on that very thing. Fuck fuck fuck. It's erratic. I want the system to function without beating on its housing to get its attention.

e-mail to Boxington:

Well, what about the Sawdust Festival? 

http://www.sawdustartfestival.org/

If you're here the 2nd through the 7th it will still be open (until the 5th, I believe). Laguna Beach was once an "artist's colony" and is now chock-full of "executive homes" -- worker bees commute from inland valleys, I think. Anyway, the Sawdust Festival might be fun. What do you WANT to do when you're here? Is the DJF/190 thing going to be a major bringdown? Isn't 19 below the legal drinking age..?

If I might pry a bit, were you two an item or a proto-item or just pals or what? ie how disappointed/pissed off are you going to be when you hit our little border town?

Maybe just a posh seaside restaurant in Del Mar (pricey/exclusive beach town)..? Will you have a car? Driving is not a lot of fun here (or anywhere, I guess) -- but it's not Boston or San Francisco or a genuine nightmare.

Hemet is a pickup-truck type of town in the mountains. Oceanside is a hard area in San Diego right next to Camp Pendleton, the enormous Marine base which is the only land left open between the Mexican border and above Santa Barbara -- it's all one colossal suburb, basically. 

If you're going to visit Mexico, drive to Ensenada (it's all superhighway) and avoid Tijuana entirely. You'll need specific Mexico auto insurance if you drive across the border. 

There's an architecturally interesting shopping mall called Horton Plaza downtown, but it's just another grimy urban shopping mall. Balboa Park is interesting, lots to see and all kinds of special events. Wow, you're here NEXT WEEK!!! Maybe I can find a copy of The Reader and send it to you so you can read it on the plane. It's the best weekly city paper I've ever seen. The LA Reader is a seedy, ugly mess IMHO and similar papers in Alabama and Georgia aren't on the same level. It really is an invaluable resource. The daily paper in town is hysterically conservative with starch in its underwear. It's a Navy town, it's a border town... it never developed like LA and San Diego has never come to terms with that. It's a small town government shot through and through like you wouldn't believe with corruption. Having lived all my life in the satellite cities to LA, moving here ten years ago and realizing what a fucking backwater San Diego is was a genuine surprise and a real disappointment.  You'd think with two big universities and being a California beach town that they'd be more... *life* here.

I think that the kids would flip if I had a friend I was going to hang out with. I'm not as concerned about them as I am about the eventually-going-to-be-ex-spouse, who is an inpatient once again at the local huge mental health facility. If she could be affected by my doing something earth-shaking, like going to lunch, I'd defer until next time. OTOH it could be a good excuse to drag the kids out to do something. I dragged them off to a museum and lunch a couple of times so far this year and it hasn't so much as slowed them down, much less killed them. 

I just wish they'd consent to going to the good tropical fish store in La Mesa, south of San Diego proper. Last year I started taking care of a goldfish my son had acquired for a Cub Scout project. I'd always been interested in getting an aquarium, and by the end of last summer I had a 40-gallon tank with many small colorful fish. I really like going to the good fish store. I think the kids just want to make sure that I don't have a good time.

Anyway. I'm in blog mode. Sorry for rambling. I will try and find a copy of The Reader and send it ASAP.



On Jul 29, 2005, at 12:15 PM, Gail Warnings wrote:
Old Town sounds fine with me. The Italian place is in Ocean Beach, 
the hippie-throwback section of town. Now, who is DJH? Did you meet 
them on the board or @ one of the conventions? Are they a Rochester 
alum, also?
You mean DJF? That would be DrvnkenJ@ckFlask, a/k/a Tim O'C0nnell, who apparently at 40 is having a relationship with 190 pr00f, a/k/a Meg@n, who is 19, after I had arranged to come visit him many, many months ago (what an asshole I am).  I met him at the first convention in Vegas, when I was still going out with T0ny a/k/a M@yhem.  I hate everyone who lives in R0chester, BTW-- no desire to get together with any of them.
Anyway, Old Town is good.  I'm glad it looks like you're available to get together-- I definitely want to meet as many people as I can while I'm out there. Maybe we could even get together with S@vage-- she is in Hemet but says she visits Oceanside sometimes.
San Diego I'm sure is beautiful-- everyone who has ever been there can't talk enough about how great it is and how the weather is perfect.


"If you don't expect too much from me, you won't be let down" Gin Blossoms
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Monday morning

Another sunny day. Another hot day in July.

I want to get some Rust-o-leum paint for the birdbath, which commenced to rust immediately. Metal wants nothing more than to be rust. So get some paint and find the wire brush and clean up the birdbath and paint it.

Trash is out. Dispose of the reddish hose once the trash can is empty. Too big.

I could stand to trim the bougainvillea. The empty charcoal bags are excellent for holding bougainvillea trimmings. I need to weed the front garden again already. The weeds grow at an astonishing rate during the summer. It's almost beyond belief. The tomatoes are like a jungle by this time. They could stand a major trimming, too.

The morning glorys and moonflowers are getting established. Slow to grow. They ought to look good once they're flowering on the trellis.

Cleaned the bird feeder. The fence is getting messy from bird poop. I'd like to improvise something to keep the birds from sitting on the parts of the fence where they might poop on the neighbor's side of the fence.

Planted some lavendar seeds yesterday. See if they sprout and grow. I'd like to plant some more cilantro. Kind of out of space again already. The serrano pepper plant is setting chiles. Ought to have plenty of tomatoes any day now.

What else is going on? Not too much. Clean the fireplace today. I'd like to order some more firewood soon. Get that delivered and stack it. I love having firewood. Not that we get so many freezing nights here in San Diego...

Cassidy's birthday is coming up. Middle school orientation and registration, which is looking like a disorganized clusterfuck of administrivia, then the beginning of school. Seven more years for Flynn until he's eighteen. Eleven years and one month for Cassidy.

I ought to move some of their college money into the Death Fund. I wish I'd followed my hunch about Apple stock before it climbed 400%. FOLLOW YOUR INSTINCTS.

I need to drag Flynn to a store and get some jeans that fit. He has a collection of jeans that don't fit right now.

Late July

Took Flynn, Cassidy and Chris to laser tag and then out for dim sum for Flynn's birthday. At home now waiting for Flynn to call for a ride home from Chris', they went swimming over there.

Flynn's presents that I'd ordered arrived on time and Cassidy helped wrap those yesterday. Some Lego sets and a cool toy that connects to the television and lets you battle Star Wars opponents with your light saber. He seems to be happy enough.

Diane's roommate called the other morning and asked if I knew where Diane was. I didn't, so I called around trying to locate her, a couple of police departments, several hospitals, et cetera. She was eventually located at UCSD Hillcrest and her neighbor was picking her up from there. Dr. Diamond called me that afternoon (very nice man) and brought me up to speed. Diane is back in Aurora Behavorial yet again. She became disoriented, was in two accidents and in her own words "was found wandering around." What the fuck is wrong with her, exactly? I expected her to get sick and die of some flavor or other of cancer, not fall apart into tiny pieces.

The end of the line was saying goodbye the night before her first ECT session. A beautiful warm night and a visit to a courtyard with high fences full of depressed people who were mostly all chainsmoking. I told her it was getting harder and harder to relate to any of what she was going through. She was hopeful about the ECT at that time.

I remember cancelling her ECT last July 13th. It didn't seem to be doing her any good and she was completely out of it for a day and a half. Frightening. I wonder if the cumulative effect of all the brain-chemical-tweaking drugs she's been given hasn't taken a toll of its own. Those drugs seem worse than whatever was afflicting her.

She seemed happy enough last Saturday, when she drove the kids to Doheny Beach near Dana Point so she could get baptized. I had no idea she was taking the kids that far. The weekend before that I believe she'd driven them to her parent's house in Mission Viejo. Someone had rear-ended her car on the trip home.

I certainly don't want the kids to be with her when she becomes disoriented. I don't want her to drive the kids anywhere. She's not well and I don't want the kids exposed to potential danger because she suddenly drops out of orbit or whatever terms you'd like to use for what happened.

Cassidy became frightened in the laser tag maze and we left after just a couple of minutes and waiting in the "vesting room." Laser tag looked like fun. The lasers seemed brighter than when I'd been with Flynn a couple of years ago.

Oh well. Glad that's over with. Go pick Flynn up from Chris' when Flynn calls. We were going to go with his friend Kody but Kody wasn't there when we went to pick him up.

Weighed myself on Thursday and hadn't lost any measureable weight. Arrgh. Frustrating. Maybe I have to go back and hit the treadmill twice a day and NOT EAT ANYTHING... God, doesn't that sound like fun?

The kids just like to slug around at home. So what? Take them along, throw them in child care, let them suffer. Exercise. I've got to cut out everything else but water... heated and filtered through coffee grounds, of course...

Glad Flynn's birthday is over. Mike and Pat e-mailed and said they'd come by tomorrow to get the kids. Hopefully Pat is doing better.

One week and two days left of summer school. I'll be glad to not have to get up and get the kids up and get Flynn to summer school on time. He showed me some of his math results the other day and on one test which made up 20% of his grade he got a ZERO. I was dumbstruck. What the fuck gives? I swear he expects an angel to come whisper the answers in his ear. It's a job to get him to use scratch paper. Drives me nuts.

Time to go set up a tape for Teen Titans. A new episode. The kids will enjoy watching it later.

 

Thursday

Diane was located @ UCSD Hillcrest being picked up by a neighbor. She was in two accidents yesterday. She's heading back to Aurora Behavioral this afternoon.

I'm not surprised. I'm not inclined to let her drive the kids anywhere, obviously. Or really watch them unsupervised, if she became disoriented. Who needs that noise?

Hot here today. Nothing going on. Weighed myself. Lost no weight at all! Lovely news. Uplifting.

So I've eaten nothing today. Two cups of coffee. Some water. That's it.

Exchanged the Playstation for one that (hopefully) works. Haven't hooked that up yet.

Cleaned the kitchen floor again. Cleaned some refrigerator shelves. Cleaned the rangetop.

Unsure what to do about Flynn's birthday. I wouldn't want to leave Cassidy with her even if she was available. I don't have room in the car to haul Flynn and his little friends and Cassidy to laser tag. Or do I? I guess that I do. Maybe I can drive Flynn and his friends down there and Cassidy and I can kill time elsewhere. Something to consider. I'm fairly certain that Cassidy is too young to go to laser tag. Was there a Toys R Us close by..? Investigate that. That would hold her interest...

Received a refill kit for a file folder labeling program, measured the sheets with my ancient pica ruler. Set that up in Illustrator. Label the file folders. Make things easier to file and to get at.

Tomorrow is Friday, tomorrow is Flynn's birthday. He'll be ELEVEN. Wow. He's more than welcome to grow up any time, now...

Diane's roommate called me. I called her folks. No one knows where she is. Not in either of two hospitals I contacted. No answer on her mobile phone. No mention of an accident in either local paper. I don't know where she is. Mike said she'd called them last night but didn't sound right, then hung up.

Wednesday

I was grilling some scallops last night and Flynn brought me the phone and said "It's an ex-roommate of yours" and it was Ms. Cou! Amazing! She is living in Hawaii with Pete. Wow, does that take me back. Sent her a couple of e-mails. Today is her birthday. She's FIFTY-TWO!!! I always think of her as being twenty-four years old. How did so much time go by? Amazing.

Took the kids to the pool last night, which was fun. Yesterday afternoon we went bowling. Haven't done that for quite a while. It's a fun kid activity.

Grilled some scallops last night with a nice tomato from the plants and some basil. The basil I tried to grow from seed didn't take off but the basil plant I bought from Home Depot is doing nicely. Made some scrambled eggs this morning with basil and another fresh tomato. I just love growing tomatoes and herbs I can use that are as fresh as they can be. Too bad we don't have room to grow corn. I ought to build another planter box or three. I love the planter box I built last fall. I like opening the back door and seeing flowers. Very nice. Very satisfying.

The first of the birdbaths arrived yesterday. Looks nice. The birds haven't gotten near it yet, but I like the way it looks.

I ought to get busy and label the file folders. Make that more useful. I could also wrap some Christmas gifts! Christmas cards arrived yesterday. I could address those now. Get Christmas attended to WAY, WAY ahead of time.

Cleaned the floors yesterday. Everything is very clean. Delightful. The cleaner things are, the better I like them.

 

Monday, July 18, 2005 10:17 AM

Feel oddly frustrated and dissatisfied again. Got Flynn to summer school on time again. Put the trash out. It was all picked up. Put the rest of the big closet doors in the trash can. Glad to be rid of those, those never worked. Need to extract the smaller closet doors from Flynn's room and cut those up.

What else? I need to organize a birthday party of some kind for Flynn. I think that the laser tag place opens at one. Diane can watch Cassidy. I'll take Flynn and the boys to laser tag. Ordered a neat light saber toy for Flynn along with some Lego sets. Need to figure out if Chris can come along on Saturday. Arrange with Diane to watch Cassidy.

Maybe I ought to clean the refrigerator.

Cleaned Flynn's room, vacuumed, put things away.

...

It's Hot.

Not as hot as it's going to get.

Dropped Cassidy off at her little friend's house, pick her up at 11:30. I hope that she has a good time.

I don't feel satisfied. Gardened and kept busy yesterday while the kids were with Diane. Grilled lackluster steaks and some chicken from Stater Brothers last night.

Changed the aquarium water on Friday evening. After I'd heard from Diane. No word from her on Thursday. Assumed she's killed herself. Was disappointed to hear from her on Friday. Took the kids over there on Saturday morning. Cassidy had expected me to pick up her backpack, so after I mailed the second batch of BB shirts at the Post Office I stopped at home and got her backpack (with her swimsuit and cover up) and drove it back to Diane's. Aren't I nice? Stopped at Stater Brothers and bought some groceries, including a pound of beef liver which I boiled and cubed for her dog.

Ordered a pizza Friday night. Pepperoni, anchovy, jalapeno and cilantro. Excellent topping combination.

What else? Not a fucking thing. It's not warm enough to run the air conditioning. I feel frustrated. Something is stuck. What is it? No satisfaction.

Glad that the BB shirts are done and mailed out.

Took the kids and Cody to Cold Stone Creamery last night. They seemed to enjoy it. My tastes run more towards grilled asparagus and grilled shrimp these days. And salsa. We went to the drive-through Mexican place a couple of nights ago and I got three beef tacos with rice and beans. Really delicious. And I got a big tamarindo drink. Really satisfying.

Ordered some new clothes for Cassidy. An on-sale skort and top set, some pajamas, a nightgown and a bathing suit. I'd ordered both kids some new underwear last week.

Cassidy's school supplies and a rolling backpack are secured. I think that I'd like to find some thin self-adhesive label material I can run through the inkjet printer to identify her school supplies.

I made a new dish last night with some skinny Japanese noodles, pork, cabbage, carrots, green onions, garlic and tamari sauce. It turned out very nicely. Cassidy asked for more!!! A sure sign of success.

Called one of Cassidy's kindergarten pals to see if she'd like to play with Cassidy. Cassidy nearly died of jealousy yesterday afternoon when Flynn had his friend Cody over.

Flynn has been pretty unhappy about summer school. I keep reminding him to make an effort and avoid being invited back again next summer. You just have to get off your ass and do your work, Flynn, there's no point in sugar-coating that bare fact.

Yesterday I assumed operation of ByteBrothers since Mal was having trouble with his ISP and I had noticed a "Mailman" mailing list option on Hostway. Go figure.

What else is new? Nothing much. Cleaned the kitchen yesterday. Cleaned the dining room yesterday. Scrubbed the bathroom the day before that. I like things clean. The cleaner they are, the better I like them.

Finally removed the sweet peas, which were gorgeous all spring and half the summer, and planted some moonflower and morning glory seedlings. Dusted that area with "Corey's Snail and Slug Death" hoping to keep the seedlings from being devoured.

The tomato plants are loaded with tomatoes. I've only harvested a few, first on the 4th of July for pizza sauce and to put on cheeseburgers and then last weekend for more pizza sauce. I made some 24-hour pizza dough and grilled it in two rounds and it turned out VERY, VERY well. Incredible flavor. Cassidy picked off four pepperoni bits and called it a night. Arrrrrgh. Can't make her eat. But, God, that pizza was stellar, really outstanding, easily the best I'd ever made and one of the best pizzas I'd ever tasted.

What else is new? What else is going on? Well, we get up every weekday morning and take Flynn to summer school and then go and pick him up every weekday at noon. The middle school where he's attending summer school is a real anthill to get into and out of. Which I dislike. I do not like traffic at all. People turn into instant assholes as soon as they get in their cars.

I need to go to the market. We need more milk. And apple juice in little green boxes. I have some chicken on hand that I grilled last night. I'd like the kids to eat more fruit and more vegetables. I bought some red and green pears at Stater Brothers last week and they're just ripe now. They're truly delicious. Good flavor and good texture.

I sawed up the closet doors from Cassidy's room, which I've always hated. Those stupid little wheels they were supposed to hang on never worked. I replaced the wheels. I was happy to work in the July sun to chop them into pieces. It'll take a few weeks to dispose of them in the trash barrel. I need to chop up the closet doors from Flynn's closet next.

I'd like (if we keep this house) to remodel Cassidy's room to provide her with her own bathroom and to remove Flynn's closet. Ideally I'd like to move the water heater to give Flynn slightly more space. And a door into the garage would be really, really great. I would love having a door that opened into the garage.

I'd also still like to get the windows double-glazed to provide a better thermal barrier. And install a whole-house fan to empty the trapped hot air above Cassidy's room and hopefully also remove the trapped hot air in the garage.

Another big household wish project would be solar panels. Unsure if I'd have to get a lawyer to get the community asshole association to accept that notion. That's an expensive idea, about $15,000. But it would pay for itself and then some in about 10 years.

What else? Not much else. Just live day to day and raise the kids as best I can. They're growing up fast and seem to be doing ok. I'm disappointed that Flynn is in summer school. He has got to change his attitude towards school and homework. He's going to get broadsided in middle school, and I'm going to be busy helping Cassidy with her school work.

I finally removed the Queen Anne's Lace or heliotrope or whatever that huge flowering plant was that I'd grown by the black gate. It was past its prime. There's a cosmos that's still growing that's even taller than the plant I removed. It has yet to flower.

I'm surprised at how long the sweet peas lasted (and happy how good they looked!). Hopefully the moonflowers and morning glories will establish themselves and grow up the trellises I'd put on the fence for them.

I removed the last of the carrots from the planter boxes along with the dill, which had bolted. I planted some marigold seeds after deadheading the marigolds.

I had to put gas in the Prius yesterday. I think I fill it about once every three weeks, and then only about 8.5 gallons worth of gasoline. I was getting about 40 something miles a gallon. Better than the 15 mpg the Santa Fe and/or '76 bus were getting.

Time to go clean more or do something useful. Go and get Flynn in about an hour and a half.

Drag the kids to the beach eventually. Or to the pool. Or something. I need to get myself to the gym eventually, somehow. I stepped on the scale last Thursday and was disappointed to see that I'd GAINED weight. Jesus. Disappointing. If I expect to live to see the kids grow up I've got to reduce my weight.