Another long day for Oscar. He spent most of it in the little cave he found under the quilt rack in the corner of our bedroom sheltered by the walls and the quilts. He has not eaten. He is still drinking water and using the litter box. Bobbie, tonight I gave him catnip and he did get all excited and ate that. Must need drugs.

The rest of the day was pretty busy. I had to go to get some potting soil for some of my new plants and some carrots for chicken soup. Then I stopped at Kate's and we exchanged the plants that we needed to from out trip out to Herb 'n' Such. Tomorrow, I will get them all in the ground, or into pots as I decide.

Dick got his weekly full shower today. That is always an adventure but is getting easier all the time as he gets more mobile and able to help.

I made that chicken soup, a herbal cream cheese and a fruit salad. We had grill tbone steaks with boiled red potatoes and Brussels sprouts for our 4th of July dinner. Good stuff. I remembered to put the flag out too. I will leave it up til Monday.

Tonight our neighbors called. Harold and Helen wanted a picture of them both taken in front of their house to show off the beautiful flowers. So. I did that for them and then had a nice visit with them. They are both in their late 80s. Helen has had health issues, starting with shingles for the past year. That has finally healed and they just found out that she has a condition called ear rocks which was making her weak and nauseated. They can cure it and she is feeling a million times better now.

Now we are watching The Capital Fourth on PBS.

Tomorrow the only place I need to go is to Mass. I even grilled enough food tonight that I will have easy cooking all day. So my only big project is to plant. I bought one of those insect repellent gadgets that you are supposed to clip to your belt and it should make a kind of shield around you. Tomorrow will be the big test.

So that is the news from us today.

I got an email last week of "Canadian Billboards" One of them said. "Don't drink and drive, you'll only spill it."

It reminded me of a jeep run many years ago. Our friends Ernie and Linda and family had joined us. Ernie got in our jeep with my ex-Dick on the corner of Patten's Valley out near Yuma. The guys were shooting bowls. The wind forms sand dunes into a kind of a bowl and one of the fun things is to start at one end or the bowl, climb at an angle as your go up and work your way down at the other end. The trick is to keep your angle and your momentum, otherwise it is easy to flip down the hill.

Anyway, Dick handed Ernie his beer (Ernie had one too, so that makes one in each hand) and started up the hill. He was going great, then he glanced down as it was time to make his descent and to his surprise there was another jeep where he was supposed to exit. They had gotten stuck I believe. So all he could do was keep gunning it until he found another path to descend on. Which he did.

However, poor Ernie, holding those beers, just froze in fear and as he did he very slowly turned his hands down and poured both of those beers right in his lap.

Hope your Fourth of July was great. Pray for our servicemen all over the world and for my friend Gail's daughter Karen who needs surgery.

Love

Mary