"Give me golf clubs, fresh air, and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air." - Jack Benny

Ninja Cat

When it's 100 degrees with the dew point at 70 you can be pretty sure the only guy driving around with windows down is the one in a '65 Falcon.
Storms a'comin.

I was outside at 6 a.m. working on the tree, cutting down the last few branches that needed to be removed and cutting up what lay on the ground into pieces that would fit in our trash cans. I already have two full for tomorrow's pickup and was looking at a lot more clipping and at least three more pairs of cans before it was all gone. By 11:00 I threw in the towel and flagged down one of the independent landscaping trucks that go by our house on a regular basis. Paid the guy $60 to haul it all off and blow/sweep up all the debris.
I feel SO much better.
I'm cheap, but at some point it just makes no sense.

Aron & Melissa and their two little kids are relatively new to Pathway. Aron is a mechanic at the local Kenworth dealership and is in charge of the section of the shop that does all the electrical work on those trucks. (Electrical work is nobody's favorite.) The four of them are coming over for pizza tomorrow night and he'll help me with a particular tricky step in the disassembly of this second engine - removing the flywheel. It requires four hands and an engine hoist, and Aron has both. Wait; he only has two hands but I have the other two, and he has the hoist.
They're great folks (of course they are; they're from west Michigan), their kids are adorable, and we'll enjoy their company.
The people are the best part.

After lunch I packed up my stuff and went to the coffee shop to write. I enjoy that. Cello concerto in my ear buds thanks to Pandora, relevant passages just a click away thanks to Bible Gateway, and a carmel latte thanks to Java Grounds Coffee Shop. Productive and almost recreational.

If you're not watching The Three Musketters on BBC America you should be. The plots for each episode are self-contained so you can jump in any time even if you don't know the characters from the book. The story lines are complex enough to hold your attention, and they're not predictable like so much of what passes for drama on TV, and you get sword fights! But even without that you gotta watch for the sets and costumes. Nothing like it anywhere but the movie theater. Amazing. The only time I've wished we had a 72" TV. If your TV provider doesn't have BBC America...Netflix?