Volume 18 - Day 192/173, 2026 - Saturday

NO RAIN! NO RAIN! Ugh. There were chances of rain today, and we actually did get a trace of rain at the Curious House. I missed it, the only way I knew it was because the back deck was a little bit wet, and it was not from me watering the plants. Because I did not water the plants in the back today, because it was supposed to RAIN! Even though there are still rain chances in the forecast, I will water some stuff in the back later this evening. There were six of us doing estate sales this morning, and we made it to five estate sales. There was a Buzz full of buzzing, and I had a blast, it is a good group doing this every Saturday. Someone else will need to drive next weekend, I am expecting the Buzz to still be in the body shop, and Marian and Judy will be out of town. I am sure we will figure something out. Cumulatively, at the five sales today, I spent $8 and change for the cast iron Elmer Fudd bank shown along with this journal entry. No markings, but I love this find, and it was 66% off. 66%? Whatever. Tomorrow, I am helping Maggie with an open house, and that will be fun.

Volume 18 - Day 191/174, 2026 - Friday

All Friday's are pretty good days, aren't they? Today was no exception, it was a pretty good day. After my walk, I took the previous estimate from the VW dealer in Georgetown, along with the estimate from the crappy insurance company (whose name shall not be spoken, but it rhymes with State Farm), to the VW dealer to have them compare estimates. The bottom line is, I will take the Buzz in on Monday for the repairs to begin. Hopefully, they will not have to order any parts, but I expect to be without the Buzz for ten days to two weeks. That's the part I don't like, and I especially don't like that this process is no longer 'all about me,' but that's the way it is. To be clear, the VW dealer is being great, and they are making the process easy for me. SO...I got home from that, and messed around the Curious House for a while, and then did nothing else for the rest of the day. I am getting pretty good at that! Watching the humming birds takes up a little bit of my time, and it is especially interesting when they fight for territory. There seems to be fewer of the Lesser Finches (less finches?), but I think it is WAY too early for them to be migrating. We shall see.

Volume 18 - Day 190/175, 2026 - Thursday

Hot, hot, hot. Don't get me started on the heat in central Texas, I have lived here for 41 years, and I know what the weather will bring from one season to the next. Not that we have four seasons here, we have summer, fake fall, fake winter, fake spring, and then we go back to summer. We have about three-and-a-half months to go before we get some cooler weather, and that will be lovely. It has been almost three weeks since we had any rain, and we had about 5.5" of rain in June, and about 65% of that was in one day. Even I am bored by this post so far. Paulina and Oliver and I went to Dairy Queen for lunch today, and I mentioned to one of the employees that one of their digital signs was grammatically incorrect. I don't think she was particularly motivated to correct it, and I doubt I will go back any time soon to check. I also made a quick trip to the post office to mail a couple checks; whenever I actually mail something, I like to go to the Post Office instead of putting them in the neighborhood cluster box. Just one of my things. I will likely go out later this evening and water some plants. I water in the morning, but with the heat, I check a few things in the evenings. We have better than average rain chances next week, and I will cross whatever needs to be crossed to make sure it really happens. The piglet needs to have her face washed, and we BOTH hate it when that happens!

Volume 18 - Day 189/176, 2026 - Wednesday

Well, that's done. Maybe it will be less of a deal next year, we shall see. There are lots of pieces of paper with this return, and that has been the norm for thelast several years. I am hoping that my working to simplify things will carry over to my tax filings going forward. Today was a relatively quiet day, not much accomplished (if you don't count the tax return). It is really just too hot to do much of anything. I did get in the car to buy lottery tickets, and make a visit to the bank. No rain lately, but there is a chance over the weekend and especially next week. I had ribs, leftover from the Fourth, for dinner tonight, and I must admit they were really good. My skills at heating stuff up is getting better and better, and I am proud of that! Ugh!

Volume 18 - Day 188/177, 2026 - Tuesday

I met Paul and Rick at Monument Cafe for our regular ROMEO Breakfast, and it was nice to be doing that again. For one reason or another, it feels like we had been absent for a month, but it was probably a couple weeks. When I left, I decided to go to Galaxy Bakery to get some scones, but I changed my mind. I still have cranberry muffins from Costco that I bought a few weeks ago, and cinnamon rolls from Upper Crust that I bought yesterday, so I am fixed for baked stuff for a while. I was up really early this morning, 4:45AM, because I heard the piglet get off the bed, which meant she was heading for the closet...but I got her outside instead, and I was not about to get back to sleep. I did get a few things done in the office that had been hanging out for a while, so that was good. It was a good feeling of accomplishment. I went to dinner tonight with Jimmie and Linda, and they are leaving for England tomorrow. They will fly to New York and meet friends and get on the Queen Mary. Sounds really fun! The rest of this week is pretty open, so maybe I will do laundry one of these days, maybe not.

Volume 18 - Day 187/178, 2026 - Monday

Callie is feeling better, I really am at a loss about what could have caused her the discomfort. She puked one more time after my post yesterday, and not since then. She is perkier and playing with Oliver, so I think she has gotten over whatever it was. I tried to blame it on the cottage cheese, not really sure that could have been it, but I will lay off that for a while. Paulina made some rice this afternoon, so I put some of that on their food tonight, and so far, so good. I picked Marian up about 11:30 this morning, and we drove in to Austin, with a stop at Upper Crust. I have cinnamon rolls for a couple days, and carrot cake for about a week. Life is good. Then we headed off to the blood bank, and donated platelets. Paulina joined us, but she was declined, not sure why. I know for a fact, Paulina eats a lot better than I do, so I am not sure why she was declined. It is terrible, to me anyway, when you are declined, because you are trying to do something good. I have been declined once since I started donating, and it was because my iron level was too low. I found out today that red wine will help your iron level, so... Whatever. I have nothing planned for tomorrow except the ROMEO breakfast. I will argue more with the insurance company whose name shall not be said, but it rhymes with State Farm. They sent me an estimate for the damage to my Buzz (caused by a gentleman rear-ending me), that is $1K less that the estimate I got from the VW dealer. I am not through with that! UGH! 

Volume 18 - Day 186/179, 2026 - Sunday

Well, I hope you had a pretty good day today, the day after the fourth! Warning: the next sentence may contain graphic verbiage that you may find offensive, so this is your last chance to log-off and go on about your business. I have spent the good part of the day cleaning up dog vomit. Callie have vomited seven times so far, and it is still daylight outside. I usually blame stuff like this on Lexie, but nope, this time it is Callie. It has not affected her appetite, not at breakfast (after the first three times) or at dinner (after and before the last four times). Whatever. Of course, as many times as I have taken her outside, she is not at all interested in doing anything but sitting or laying down in the grass. So, I can now qualify as having a PhD in dog vomit, and not voluntarily. When I was not cleaning up after Callie, the rest of the day was relatively uneventful, and I guess I am fortunate for that. I read the papers, both the Statesman and the NYTimes, printed a couple things and made some notes about stuff I need to do later in the week, and I had salmon for dinner, which should be helpful for my platelet donation tomorrow. I will pick Marian up at about 11:30 and, most likely there will be a stop at Upper Crust for cinnamon rolls and carrot cake. Life is good, and hopefully Callie will improve over the next day or two. I found three or four sets of morning glories that have bloomed three at a time, and they are really pretty. They are doing really well so far this year, and they are very low maintenance. Lucky for them!