I have to clean the garlic I harvested a couple of weeks ago -- it's been curing, hanging in my living room window. 16 bulbs. I will have a whole fall & winter's worth of garlic, yum.

Supposed to be MUCH cooler tomorrow so hopefully the cats can sit on my lap again.

I am working, but expect a better time since we have a wee reduction in temps and some afternoon showers predicted. Last weekend was high heat indexes plus a mulch sale and only 2 of us scheduled, so it took until last night for me to get my back calmed down. It's getting to be too much for me. Older and no wiser.

I have finally found the attention span to read books again. And I have to find new stuff because I have gone through my backlog. I so greatly enjoy getting lost in a book. Pure solace.

I do despise mosquitoes and we have an abundance of them. So I must coat myself with yucky repellent every single time I go out. I wish I had the genetics of one grandfather who was naturally repellent to the buggers. (He was a nice person.)

Mom has fallen again; not too bad, but I just cannot fathom putting her in a facility during these times. Plus she is adamantly against the mention of it. Quite a balancing act.

Waiting for cooler autumn weather to start living outside again.

Trying to get a bunch of small jobs done around the house. This evening I moved the backyard hose faucet. Drilling through eight inches of concrete was easier than I expected and PEX piping and connectors make plumbing super fast and you don't need to mess around with a touch. Whole job took about a hour.

The three cats, Caspar, Nora Lou, and Possum will be continuing to get know each other. Other than a swat or two it's been OK.

Mosquitoes have been bad here too and they are carrying West Nile although I just assume the always do now.

mightshould I hope you can balance the mom situation. It gets so hard when they are getting to the point of falling often. Hugs.

Weather forecast will b nicely below 90s for the first time in weeks, so that makes for a pleasant looking weekend. Farmer's market tomorrow (tomatoes!). Other than that plans are unformed. Maybe some beach, maybe some hiking with those nice temps.

We've had a brutal heatwave due to an airstream that came up from the Sahara Desert, bringing temperatures in the high 90s during the day and the 80s at night. It's been horrendous, a four-showers-a-day situation. Rudi and I have been hanging out in front of the fans. Thankfully the temperature has dropped by 25 degrees (fahrenheit) and we've had a little rain. It's such a relief.

This weekend I need to buy more bird food - those little critters get through a lot of sunflower hearts and peanuts. I recently bought some new hangers for the feeders which are 16" long and project the feeders a long way out from the pole. The squirrels can't hang onto the pole with their feet and reach over to the feeders with their front paws as they're now too far away. I use Squirrel Buster feeders so if they try and jump on them, the feeders close. So it's happy birdies and frustrated skwerls.

My friends down the street have invited me for dinner - we're ordering a curry from a local place. These are the only people I interact with, and we are all keeping our distance, so I feel safe going into their house.

I'm going to make a lemon cake to bring with me that we can have for dessert. It's their son, James's, favourite cake. He got his results this week for his B.Tech course. It's the equivalent of A-levels (which in the UK are the exams people take at the age of 18, and the grades determine whether or not you can go to university). James struggled at school and didn't do well in his GCSEs (exams taken at 16). He left school and went to a local Further Education college (similar to Community College, where courses are practically-based, geared towards students who are not traditionally academic) to study computer science. This year exams were cancelled, but the courses involve a lot of continuous evaluation, so are better for students who don't do well in exams.

James's results were great - Distinction, Merit, A* and A, and in September he's going to university to study for a B.Sc in Computer Science. His parents are so proud of him, and I'm really happy that he's done so well. I'm so glad that he was able to find his focus in an educational environment that helped him to thrive and succeed.

Tomorrow, a little gardening. I've got a sunflower growing where it doesn't need to be, so I'll move that to another spot where it'll get more sun. Weeding too, in the veg bed, and a little tidying up, especially deadheading and French pruning my tomato plants.

Senyar, let James know an internet stranger sends congrats.
And...I'm afraid to google french prune tomatoes...it sounds illicit.

A French prune is where, on cordon tomatoes (that grow upwards from a single stem, rather than like a bush), you cut away every single branch that doesn't bear flowers. That way the plant puts more energy into producing fruit, so you get more, and bigger, tomatoes. The side leaves grow back surprisingly quickly. I find I have to prune my tomatoes every two weeks.

I don't know how much I've said about the last few years, but in a nutshell, I'm married now and we've recently moved to Alameda. It's been, and continues to be, a whole weekend of continuing to unpack and organize, plus building a fence (out of hogwire mesh panels and redwood) for the chickens.

Also, it rained last night. Thunder and lightning! That is SO STRANGE in the Bay Area at this time of year.

Belated congrats tangerine.

Happy news, tangerine, I am so pleased for you.

(Also, we need chicken pictures.)

That's great news, tangerine. Congratulations!

I am thinking we could use something like MetaChat Old Home Week. Like designate a date when we are all going to check back in and share updates like that. I wonder if I can email everyone in the user database with a heads up, or something like that.

I mean it's interesting that for a supposedly "dead' site, clearly a couple dozen people check back in every so often to see what's up. When's the last time we had a 10 comment thread?

I'm thinking homecoming reunion. US Thanksgiving Weekend?

I like the idea.