I must've felt a vague itch because i brushed my hand across my stomach and felt something that shouldn't be there, like a scab. I pulled a tick off the edge of my belly button. It was unbelievably tiny.

Damn it! I'll have to go in late to work tomorrow so i can hang around here til 8:30 a.m when the doc's office opens and see if i can see someone asap for another 3 weeks of antibiotics.

I just went thru this in July. I don't like repeating antibiotics so much, but i think the consequences of not doing so would be worse.

This was an incredibly productive weekend. I'm quite tired. This weekend, I:

1. Went grocery shopping at Shop-Rite.
2. Made a tray of lasagna.
3. Mowed and trimmed the front lawn.
4. Vacuumed out my car.
5. Cleaned out the garage.
6. Made a delicious cheddar/onion/cauliflower soup. (VERY good...i rated this recipe "Excellent" in 2005 yet hadn't made it again until today)
7. Rode my bike around 8 miles RT with some major hills to feed my neighbor's cat while she's away in Narragansett.
8. Deposited a check at the bank.
9. Topped off my gas tank.
10. Picked up a bag of cat food at Petco.
11. Finished priming the trim and benches in the sun room.
12. Did my August expense sheet and investments; investments did quite well, up $15,000.
13. Cooked up another batch of tomatoes for the winter freezer.

I should sleep well tonight.

Well, guess what? I do believe I've kicked the habit! The one I shared with Michael Jackson...taking meds for my insomnia.

I started taking these pills about 3 years ago after trying some my ex-boyfriend used for his occasional insomnia. I've always been a very light sleeper, and if i have my windows open at all, the sound of cars going by occasionally disturbs my sleep. My cats also used to get rambunctious, although they've been much better lately.

Anyway, it wasn't hard at all to feel like those pills were my security blanket. Getting a sound sleep has always been an issue for me. I never wanted to risk not having slept well and then dragging through a workday, so there was a time i was taking them 5 days a week (and forcing myself to go without on the weekends). The problem with most sleeping pills is that after a period of time, your body gets used to them and you need a higher dose to achieve the same effect. After a time, i found that happening, and it worried me.

So a while back I told myself i would only take them, at most, 3 days a week, and i stuck to that. then i found that even on those nights i took them, my sleep was not totally undisturbed, and i still woke up in the middle of the night. The pills just made it slightly easier to fall back asleep when that happened.

However, at some point, i skipped taking the pill a night or two, and felt that even while i lay awake for several hours in the middle of the night, i seemed to function ok at work. I do start getting sleepy fairly early in the evening, around 9 pm, and then conk out by 10 pm, but that was doable. Hey, i get up at 5:50 am these days, so what do you expect?

One or two nights without pills turned into 3, 4, 5 and so on. I think it's been maybe 3 weeks since i've taken a pill, and i see no reason why i would take any more now.

I'm pretty psyched about that, partly due to the modest cost savings I'll see. And i don't like taking meds in general, so now I'm down to just 2, which will drop to just 1 med in another year or two. Right now, i take Copaxone for the MS, which i'll be on for life, and birth control pills to reduce risk of reoccurrence of ovarian cysts, which i had to have surgery for 3 years ago. But once i go thru menopause, i will drop the BC pills.

I was really waffling on how to spend my last day at home. The weather, as I've mentioned, has sucked, but today is a decent day, not as humid as it's been.

I was torn between kayaking, bike riding or doing things I "should" do, like priming the woodwork in the sun room. And i still haven't seen Julie & Julia.

After reading MonkeyMama's post, i decided to do the kayaking. I've only been once this summer, and i'd been wanting to go on a quiet weekday when i knew i'd have the lake to myself.

I was out for 2.5 hours and got another good upper body workout in. Only 3 boats passed me; otherwise, complete solitude. The sound of my paddle dipping into the water becomes rhythmic and so relaxing. Still, i could feel my stomach muscles tightening as i put some oomph into my paddling.


Saw 5 great blue herons. (It's possible some were the same bird.)


Emerald green waters


Rocky shoreline

Last night i located one of the addresses i'd found online for the painting company i'm suing. I spoke to a woman there who said Renato had moved out in 2004 and she didn't know where he was living. As i was turning my car around to go home, she came out again and said wait a minute, the woman who lives in back knew him, and she might know where he is.

They spoke to each other in Spanish, and then the 2nd woman told me he had moved back to Brazil (!) and hadn't been feeling well, had been having anxiety attacks. (Probably becus of all the people who want their money back, i'm thinking.) And the other one, Andre, she doesn't think was working for him anymore.

When i got home, i called the number i have for them and left a message leaving a different name and saying my mother needed to have her house painted and could they call me back to arrange a time to see the house. I then arranged with friend H. that she would distract him by showing him the house while i took down the guy's license plate number. I would also make a point to ask for his business card and to give me his FULL name. (As a potential new customer, it would seem more plausible that I would want his name.) (Andre's last name is illegible on the signature he used to sign my contract, so for that reason, i couldn't sue him individually in my lawsuit.) So with those 2 additional pieces of information, i could possibly still press a case against him. As for Renato, whether or not he's in Brazil, looks like a dead-end at the moment.

This is assuming i'll get a call back from Andre at General Painting Co. I doubt he'll remember me (or my phone number) from 2 years ago and i'll wear my hair in a ponytail just in case.

As for my next door neighbors, who were given a month by the town zoning officer to find another place to conduct their landscaping business from, rather than home, they have not complied with her request. The trailer and leaf blower truck are still in the driveway and this a.m. i happened to be out in my front yard when i saw one of the guys riding the 2 commercial mowers, which are now hidden in the backyard, onto the trailer. So they assume they can get around town zoning laws by hiding the mowers in back.

I spoke to the zoning officer and told her all this. I think she was thinking more of her upcoming vacation, but she said she would tell the town attorney of this before she left. The wheels of justice move very slowly. I guess i'll give the town attorney a week before i follow up with him.

Yesterday I went to Stop & Shop for some groceries. As usual, I grabbed 2 reusable grocery bags from the back seat of my car. One was a nice purple one from Stonyhill Farm, i think, and the other a much larger and very sturdy bag from another company.

I threw them in a cart and headed for the ATM. After getting cash from the machine, i wheeled the cart and headed on my way. I'm pretty sure i didn't leave my cart to go looking for anything. Perhaps for just a minute as i went to walk around someone to grab some cheddar.

But when i got to the checkout, i went to grab my 2 bags to give them to the bagger and they weren't there! It just seemed bizarre to me that someone would want to take my bags, and i also think there was hardly any chance for someone to do so, unless it happened when i had my back to the cart at the ATM machine.

It really miffed me. I actually took a quick spin around the supermarket eyeballing everyone's cart to look for my bags, and i asked at the customer service desk, too.

Really bizarre.

My friend R. drove with me yesterday to go hunt down the address I'd found online for the painters whom I'm suing. The small claims court had returned my filing to me last week and said when they mailed it to the defendant it came back undeliverable. Problem is, the court papers didn't indicate which of the 3 addresses i provided came back undelverable. OK, I'll assume it wasn't the PO Box number, and i guess you can't serve papers to a PO box. But that still left 2 addressees.

I had tried looking up the address before i filed, but couldn't find it. With my friend, we found it easily. It was at a very nice condo complex. I just hadn't anticipated the address could be a residential one, and I'd assumed I'd be looking in a commercial, low rent kind of area.

As we sat in the driveway of this condo unit, my friend tried calling the number i had for them and we got an answering machine that still answered, "General Painting Co., please leave a message." But we weren't sure if they were still living/operating out of this residential address, and the "undeliverable" status of my claim seemed to suggest they weren't.

With my friend in the car, i got out in the by now pouring rain and knocked on the door. No one was home. I saw through the window that there was nice furniture in there, but i'm not sure i would say it was fully furnished the way a family would furnish it. And there was a lot of stuff on the floor in one room.

Anyway, in the court papers, they direct you to hire a state marshal (from their list) to serve the papers. But what they don't explain is that the state marshal only serves the papers. He doesn't do any real investigatory work if you don't have the right address, aside from 2 things: checking the Secretary of State's for a business registration, which i already did myself online, and, if you happen to have a license plate (I don't) he could get an address that way. I found all this out by calling a state marshal at random.

However, legally you still have to have a state marshal file the papers at this point. It costs $75 (on top of the $35 i spent to file the case already). So it doesn't seem to make sense to spend $75 for the state marshal to serve papers until and unless i do some legwork myself confirming i have the right address this time.

I think I've used up my friend's willingness to help me so once again, I'm on my own with this. It's very frustrating.

So I'll give it one more shot tonight. It being Sunday, chances would be good i think to find someone home. I'll go back to the same address we were at yesterday and inquire at the door. It's very possible the painters have moved to another address if they do shoddy work and rip people off if they don't want to be found. (Remember, it was just a PO address they used on my contract, and i found this address doing a search online for the company.) If there's someone home and it ends up being them, I'll just make up some story that i owed him money but the check i mailed came back undeliverable and i was just trying to locate them (although i won't have the check with me to give them, of course).

If someone else is living there now, i could possibly get some leads on where they moved to becus people often still accidentally get mail going to an old address.

I can do the same thing at the 2nd address i had used in the small claims filing, an address i found for 1 of the 2 painter guys i dealt with. Again, i have no idea if the court tried mailing papers to one or both of the street addresses i listed. Not very helpful, and they're very difficult to get on the phone, especially when i'm at work.

I'm a little nervous about doing all this and am a little concerned for my safety, but i should be ok. I just hope i can bluff my way through it.

But if none of these 2 trips results in anything tonight, i might as well give up on my small claims case and swallow the fact that i wasted $3600. It pisses me off that this company routinely does this. On the yahoo directory site that allows review of companies, I had seen earlier some very negative comments about the company by a former employer, to which i added my own negative comments. When i checked this site again yesterday, i saw a 72 year old customer posted comments just as bad, and that was in early July, which is a clear sign this company is still actively ripping people off. If there was a way i could contact the old guy, i would, but the yahoo reviews don't give you that option.

I am also somewhat discouraged/annoyed/unhappy that i had a 4-day weekend, one of my last hurrahs for the summer, and the crappy weather made it difficult to do much. I couldn't mow my lawn. I couldn't wash my clothes becus they wouldn't line dry in this muggy weather, so i guess i'll have to incur extra cost using the dryer, needlessly. I haven't been able to go kayaking or walk much and i haven't wanted to heat up the house using the oven so i haven't been able to make my banana bread with 2 very overripe bananas. I'm feeling cranky.

He's almost there. He brought over the full length window screens today as they'd goofed back in May and given me just half window screens with the order, but wouldn't you know, the screens didn't fit.

So now i have to wait another 3 weeks to get the screens in, which is a pain, becus i want to be able to open the windows fully from the top; that way, the cats won't be tempted to sharpen their claws on them the way they could now, with the window (and screen) open from bottom.

(One good thing about the window company's goof is that i asked Ralph and he said he doesn't think they'll want the half screens back, so i can keep them as "backups" in case the full length screens get damaged.)

I don't want to pay him the rest of what i owe him ($2,000) before i get those screens!

The only other thing he has to do is fill in the exterior stonework with cement, which he'll wait til Monday to do due to weather.

Here are some pix:


Here's the left side...There are a total of 6 windows, plus the French door. The benches are super sturdy... (I had him do the special fluted trim and rosettes around the door frame to dress it up.)

I will be priming and painting the benches and trim around the windows with a semi-gloss white.


Here's the right side. As you can see, the room never was that big to begin with, and I knew the benches would make it even smaller. Still, i really like the benches... I can still fit in my lounge chair and a small table on the right so i can read and relax, and on the left with the 2 benches meeting in the corner, i could even put in a small table for dining maybe.


Here's the exterior, left side...I have a lot of stone walls surrounding my driveway, so this fits right in. (It was my idea. I wanted maintenance-free, so no wood.)


Here's the exterior, right with my pretty hydrangea tree.

The next thing I'll want to do is have an electrician install a ceiling fan, then I'll have Ralph come back and insulate and close in the wall and the ceiling. I may not do this until next year.

Now that I've found a truly good contractor, i don't want to let him go! He already gave me a price on replacing an old window on the side of my garage. It opens, but i don't see a need to have a large window that opens in the garage, so the new one will be fixed with grills inside the glass. It'll qualify for the federal tax rebate for high energy efficient windows and i'll get back about $120 for that.

I feel VERY BAD for giving Ralph the go-ahead on the garage window when i said i would go back to building up my emergency fund after the sun room was done.

My house is the one thing I willingly spend money on. I get to enjoy it, and hopefully it will enhance its value if and when i sell it.

I've hired many contractors over the years and the vast majority have been either super expensive or not very good, cutting corners, letting inexperienced workmen do the job without supervision, etc.

I really liked Ralph. He was easy to talk to, willingly to customize little things here and there as the work progressed, and his workmanship was very good, i thought. And the price was not out of sight.

I hate to admit it, but i'm already thinking of two more projects he could do after he's done with the garage window.

I had always thought the 2 sides of my attached garage would also look good faced with stone. He he he. He could use the same stone on the garage that he used on the sun room exterior.

And then there's the paneling of my living room and dining rooms, lower half, to camoflauge flaws, bumps and cracks. Getting that job done would be tricky becus i really would not feel comfortable having anyone here in the house when i'm not here, so it would have to proceed sporadically, plus i'd have to lock the cats away so they didn't slip out while he was in and out cutting the wood.

Still, it could be done and he's definitely the man to do it.

My shortness of breath continued for several years before I realized it was my too-tight bras that were causing it. I even spoke to my doctor about it when i went for a physical. (He didn't figure it out.)

You see, I've been wearing the SAME bra size (36B) since high school! It's just not something i figured would ever change, maybe partly becus my weight has been sort of or more or less stable most of my adult life. Can you believe, i just never thought about it?

Also, I rather liked knowing i was a 36B. It seemed like a good size to be.

I guess I know what corset wearers used to go through in the 19th century. I'd periodically have shortness of breath, as if i couldn't get enough air in my lungs. I once wondered if i had lung cancer.

Today i went to Macy's and bought 3 bras on sale. By making a $3 charitable donation to some cause, they gave me an extra $10 off, plus this week you don't pay sales tax on clothing items under $300. So I paid $49 for the 3 bras, or about $16.50 each. They're 38Cs, and let me tell you, I'm breathing much easier!

Most of the bras I saw retail in the $30 to $32 range...ridiculous, if you ask me. But hey: you can't skimp when you buy a bra.

I stopped at Good Will today looking for tops, to take further advantage of no sales tax week, but didn't see anything i liked. That's ok, i got the bras, plus i unexpectedly picked up 2 tops at Walmart the other day, so i guess i'm all set. (I used to always shop at Kohl's and Macy's for my clothes, but I've decided to save my money for other things. Clothes are so expensive; it just doesn't seem worth it to me.)

Also stopped at Trader Joe's to load up on cat food, then Costco, the home of the $1.95 gallon of milk.

In other news, I turned the AC on for the first time today. Probably more so for the cats than myself. Truth be told, if i'd had either one of them set up already, i would have turned them on sooner, but my smaller one was in the attic, and it's quite heavy to lug down those narrow stairs, plus, once i put it in the bedroom window, i lose the nice cross ventilation i get from having 2 open windows. I've also noticed the street noise is a lot louder.

The other AC is a portable job you have to vent out a window. That's the one i put together. It doesn't really cool the downstairs becus the 3 rooms (LR, DR and kitchen) are just too big a space to cool. I wonder what my electric bill will be like after running that thing about 4 hours.

I believe this is around day 7 of a heat wave of temps in the 90s. We're supposed to get a break on Sunday. Sunday can't come too soon.

Today was my last summer Friday. I believe it has either rained or been too uncomfortably hot every one of my summer Fridays.

Got paid for some freelance work i did 5 weeks ago...$255, thank you very much. It always happens.... as soon as i send them a "late payment" notice, i get the check in the mail.

My builder's started the stonework on the exterior of my sun room and let me tell you, it looks just great. I can't believe he chose today to swelter out there today and do it. The stone work is all he has left to do, plus run to the window store and pick up my full length window screens and pop them in. I'm excited this job is finally nearing completion. I'm very happy with the way it came out. Pix tomorrow.

I asked a friend of mine if he wanted to go to a wedding with me in October, and he said no! I hadn't realized he'd been dating a woman and i guess, he says, she wouldn't like it. It's my half-brother's wedding reception. He and M. already married with a justice of the peace. I had wanted my friend to go partly becus he knows the city inside and out, and i really didn't want to drive to Brooklyn myself (at least 2 hours), but i guess that's what i'm gonna do, cus there's no one else i'd want to ask.

So far this year, I"ve picked 34 cucumbers from my garden. That's from just 3 plants! Next year, i'll only need 2. I've also picked a few tomatoes now. They love the heat, but i can see they're already on the way out; it's just that time of year. There are a lot of green ones on the vine. I have enough to have with a salad often enough, but not sure i'll have enough to freeze up for winter use, which i really love to do.

I transferred $250 to my Roth IRA mutual fund today. That leaves just $750 or so to go for remainder of 2009.

My contractor made a bit more progress on the sun room in the last 2 days. On Friday, I saw that he'd installed the door lock and handle (though he's got to gouge out the hole in the door frame where the thingy goes).

Yesterday, he showed up, but only stayed about 3 hours; it was brutally hot out but he refused a fan again. He did a bit more trim; don't know why he didn't just finish the 2 remaining pieces needed on the benches. He also made progress on the exterior wall that will be covered with stone. He's putting some wire mesh material on the wall which i guess will be covered with cement first, then the stone.

At this rate, i'll feel fortunate if he finished up at end of August. A project he promised would be done within 3 weeks will have taken 2 months. Sigh. Small stuff, i know.

Sometimes it seems like progress comes so slowly, not just with sun rooms, but with my financial goals, too. Things just creep along, and no matter how much money i throw at things, the numbers barely change. Bull market, where are you?

Day #1 of heat wave....I decide to take the kayak out, alone, for the first time in about 2 years.

Although it's not my favorite spot, i decide to go the closest put-in spot in my town. I head for the town boat ramp on Lake L., about a mile or so past the state boat ramp on the same road, same body of water. They call it a lake, but it's really just a very wide river.

So I head for the town boat ramp, which is much less crowded than the state ramp. Annoyingly, the gate is closed when i arrive at about 7:50 am.

So i turn around and go to the state boat ramp, which has about a half dozen vehicles and empty trailers already in the parking lot.

I unload the boat and push out into a channel that opens into the lake after about a half mile.



Today's the first day of at least a weeklong heatwave with temps in the 90s, so i wanted to get an early start, and in fact, the fog is still overhanging the water, so much so that i worry a powerboat bearing down on me might not see me.

So I hug the shore and entertain myself looking at all the houses.


Some are quite grand.


And some homes can't even be seen from the lake.


I startled a great blue heron on the dock (at right) who silently took wing when i came too close.


The first hour of my journey was calm and quiet, but 9 a.m. seemed to be the magic hour when a jet ski as annoying as a high-pitched, buzzing mosquito buzzed around. Mostly, there were just people fishing from their boats.


I went as far as the bridge, then turned around. I didn't want to overdo my first kayaking trip in a while, even though it's wonderful upper body exercise for me.

I made it back in half the time, due to the current.

There were more people unloading boats in the water, and an older man with his own kayak offered to help me get my boat on my car. Since i'd been paddling for a few hours, i was more tired than when i started, so i said yes.

I enjoyed it so much that i want to go again next Friday (a day off) when i think it might be quieter on the water. And i want to leave from the town boat ramp which is about a half mile further north, so that way, I can paddle beyond bridge. I'll have to call Parks & Rec to see when they open that gate up on a weekday.

And maybe i'll pack a simple lunch of some sort.

I've experienced a small, but frustrating setback with my small claims case against the house painters.

I filed it back in May. I finally got thru to the courthouse to a live person who told me my entire filing is being returned to me becus when they went to inform the defendant they were being sued, it came back "undeliverable."

so I'm back to square one, and instead of firmly confirming i had the correct address before filing, i wasted an entire summer just to be told it wasn't.

My next option is to hire a state marshal to track these people, or their company, down. Presuming they can find them and that i win the judgment, the cost of hiring the marshal would be tacked onto the judgment. I have no idea at this point how much it would cost.

My preference is to try to wheedle a friend R., who has PI experience, into helping me look for them. He has expressed willingness to do so, but not before replying to my note by saying he'd also go over his "rates" with me. I took him seriously, becus he tends to be a stingy guy, and i said no thanks, the state marshal has more experience, and he said he was just kidding. Hmmm.

It's just so discouraging.

the other day at work i was doing a search for something or other online, and i came up with a home renovation site owned by someone named XXXXX X. XXXXX. The name jumped out at me. He was one of the younger brothers of my very best friend when i was growing up, and it was through the generosity of my friend's parents that they agreed, already a family of 7, to let me live with them for an entire year so that i could finish my senior year of high school in the school i'd been attending. My mother was getting remarried for the 3rd time and moving out of town.

It was a miracle, really, that they took me in. I just recently turned 50, and i can honestly say that year was the best and happiest year of my life. I guess becus i felt i belonged to a family, an experience i'd never had before, and really haven't had since.

Anyway, the younger brother, T., is all grown up now, probably in his late 30s. I wasn't sure if it was him at first, but then i read what he's written on his website about how he came to specialize in home renovations for physically handicapped people becus his own father ended up in a wheelchair after a bad car accident when T. was just 11. Yes, this was him. I remember that accident, or at least hearing about it. It happened in the December after I left in the fall for my first year of college.

It was very touching that T. chose to make this his life's work. I was tempted to call him and say hello, but i felt a little funny about it.

The last time i'd been in touch with my girlfriend was i guess 25 years ago. I was living with R. at the time and she came up with her 1st husband. At the time, i disliked him very much; he was verbally abusive to her, condescending, sarcastic but she seemed to put up with it. He also seemed very gay/effeminate to me. About a year later, my friend told me he had died of tuberculosis. In my mind, i decided he must've had AIDS as TB is a common complication of that. don't ask my why a woman would marry a gay man, or vice versa, but i'm sure there are reasons. We lost touch after that, and i guess i assumed, since she never tried to look me up again, that it was her preference. Altho i do remember she sent me a photo of her with her 2nd husband and subsequent 2 children.

Just seeing T.'s website gave me such a wierd feeling. That family will always have a special place in my heart. But each of the kids is kind of frozen in time in my mind, and i remember exactly as they were as kids, even though they're obviously grown up, only becus i haven't seen them since then.

I sort of became obsessed with finding out more about some of the others. I didn't really find anything except, sadly, the obituary for my friend's father and some zoning board notes that indicated my friend's mother had attended some meetings expressing concern for speeders coming from a huge new development in the woods behind their house. We used to catch crayfish in the river there and explore the woods. i guess it's really changed now.

Maybe one reason to hold back from reconnecting with any of them is i usually get the inevitable question, so, are you married now? At least with a boyfriend, that's something, but it sort of makes me feel like a loser to have to awkwardly say "no." Other than not getting married or having kids, what exactly have i done with my life? Not much, besides buy a house, and work.

I didn't think it would.

Last year, after reading that boxwoods were one of the shrubs you can propagate through cuttings, I was at the church's meditation park and noticed some boxwoods that, umm, needed pruning. I snipped a two-inch tall shoot from one and when i got home, i dipped it in rooting hormone and stuck the little guy in the ground.

A few weeks later, i noticed some of the leaves had turned brown. I wondered if it was alive, so i tugged on the shoot, but it seemed to offer resistance, so i left it alone.

This year, i noticed the little boxwood cutting now had 3 shoots.



Could be a LONG time before it gets to be big enough to be noticed, but i was so enthusiastic (free shrubs!) i clipped three more boxwood cuttings when H. and I were in Kent the other day. She gave me her near-empty water bottle to put them in.

Yesterday and today, I:

* Dropped off 2 cucumbers each from my garden for H. and my mom on my way to...

*Supermarket. Returned bottles, too.

* Filled up gas tank.

* Did some weed whacking after yesterday's lawn mowing

* Planted my fall crops: lettuce, radish, snap peas (won't make it, but anyway) and spinach. The snap peas won't be ready for harvesting til Oct. 21, but i planted them before i read the packet. I'm pretty sure we'll have a frost before then.

I'm going to make my mushroom/barley casserole today.

I had to pull out one of my big tomato plants, which had plenty of green tomatoes on it, because it showed signs of having that blight disease that's going around. What a shame. My other tomato plants look healthy, but if any of the spores spread to them from the diseased plant, I'll know soon enough. A real possibility I'll have NO tomatoes this year, I can't believe it. Nothing to freeze for winter soups and stew. What a big bummer.

So far, I harvested 21 cucumbers from my 3 plants, lots of string beans, potatoes and lettuce earlier in the year. Also a little garlic but that's about it. The bell pepper plants have revived with the warm weather. Maybe there's hope for them. I did manage to eat 2 cherry tomatoes from still-healthy plants.

I took a really nice nearly three-hour-long bike ride this a.m. A rare low-humidity summer day. I slathered on the SPF 70, but most of the ride was shaded anyway. I wore my biker shorts (they have a padded crotch) and helmet, and brought my camera, road map, water bottle and a plastic bag to pick up beer cans. I biked mostly residential neighborhoods that are outside the center of town and so have less traffic.

Here's a peek:


Stately home


Typical old Colonial home


A boat ramp at the north end of town


It's known as Pond Brook


It's unusual to see a brick house in the country, but here is one.

So I'm very happy with the quality of work of my builder, who's doing my sun room, but the big problem with him is that he hasn't been working steadily on it. He worked on it only 1 day last week and apparently is working other jobs at the same time. I'm not sure why he does that, i guess to make sure he's always got work, but it's aggravating to see progress go so slowly.

I'd specifically asked him if he was going to take off in the middle of the job, because I've run into this before, and he said no. But here he is doing it. I had even had him write on the contract, "Job to be finished in 3 weeks," becus i thought that would push him to do the work in a timely manner. I don't know what exactly i can do, but i don't like having both the sun room and the family room, where all the furniture from the sun room is stashed, out of commission for so long. He started the job in July and as per our written agreement, was supposed to have finished it last week. He's only about halfway through. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. He does good work and i'd like to use him for other stuff becus his price is also good, so i don't want to tick him off or anything. Maybe i just have to grin and bear it.

Yesterday was a day off, so H. and i took a little day trip to Kent, a country town that has a touristy downtown with shops and restaurants. A lot of New Yorkers come up here to hang out.

We ate lunch at the Fife & Drum, which you can always count on for good food. I really didn't want to spend a lot of money, but most of the other places are takeout, or so i thought, though in hindsight, we could've found something nice if we'd just looked. But we went to Fife & Drum. There wasn't much on the lunch menu, and since i don't eat a lot of meat, i thought i'd do something different and have a burger.

It was priced at $10. So with tip, I spent $13 on a pretty good burger on a plate with a handful of chips and a tablespoon of coleslaw. A pretty poor value, and I'm still kicking myself for spending that much when i knew i didn't want to to begin with. We poked in and out of some of the shops, and while i saw a number of really nice things that shouted, "Buy me!" I was good and bought nothing.

My mother and sister were over here for lunch today. Actually, it was my birthday lunch, as my birthday is coming up early next week.

I feel a little sad that i don't have a special someone to share it with, but that's really been my choice. I just don't feel like it's a priority right now, and my life seems full with other stuff.

I got fresh chicken eggs from my sister. She's spoiled me now. After eating her eggs, store-bought eggs taste very "old" to me. Most of her chickens have been killed by daytime raccoons and a fox; she has new chickens now and while the others were free range on her 3 acres, these can only be let out of the coop when she's home to keep an eye on them.

I made a potato salad with my homegrown spuds, my mother brought roast chicken and a peach/blueberry pie with walnut/tahini crust (good!) and beets and my sister brought homegrown carrots with a horseradish sauce she made plus some snap peas.

My sister met Luther for the first time, and neither, of course, met Waldo becus he doesn't "do" visitors.

My latest breakthrough with Waldo is, sometimes when i stretch out my hand/fingers to him, he'll sniff my fingers. The breakthrough was when he rubbed his little cheek against my fingers! I am also very lightly "petting" his back when i put down his food. I ever so gently touch him, and he skitters away, so it's not a real pet, but the point is, i'm getting him used to my touch. Or trying to, anyway.

I also took a picture of him on my bed.




It's the only furniture he's ever jumped on. Just think of it: he's been so timid he never jumped on anything here for nearly 3 months now. I've caught him on my bed a few times, now, and I think he looks so cute. The first, and only, bed, he's ever been on in his 6.5 year life.

I feel kinda blah. My Friday off was kind of a bust becus it rained all day and i couldn't do much; didn't feel like going out in the pouring rain. Yesterday was nice, but today was again sticky, humid and rainy on and off. It's stopped now, and i'm tempted to go out for a walk. I've put in a few extra pounds, maybe 5, and it shows. I feel middle-aged.

August will be another expensive month for me becus my builder should finish the sun room up and want his final $2,000. I guess the axle boot car repair can wait til September. Then sometime this fall i'll need new tires for the car, definitely before the first snow flies.