nice weekend

It was a very pleasant weekend, starting with lunch on Friday with an old friend, someone I met way back when I volunteered at AIDS Action. I managed to maintain touch with him before email, when he moved to Belgium, to Saudi Arabia, and to someplace else I can't now remember. Now he's living back home and we have email and occasional lunches to stay in touch.

Our cabinet guy finished everything on the list except for a special cabinet he's making for us. It'll be about six inches wide and will sit between the stove and dishwasher. We'll probably use it to store cutting boards.

Yesterday, we attended a very sweet outdoor barbecue hosted by a former coworker and her husband. They live way south, south of Ikea, even, which, except for the cape, seems like beyond the beyond. Her parents had driven out from Ohio with their new tiny kitten who was too young to leave behind. Parents were lovely in keeping with their reputation, and the kitten at five weeks was beyond adorable, tail still pointy, colors still coming in. At a certain point, though, he completely crashed and slept deeply.

We stopped off at Ikea on the way home to buy a few more things, including a bookcase, and to replace a light fixture that had gone south. I told the returns lady that it was the electric equivalent of a roach motel -- the electricity was going into the transformer, but it wasn't coming out.

And today, despite our mini heat wave, we got a ton done. The kitchen is 99.9% put back together. The bookcase is assembled and the ratty pieces of furniture it replaces are in the garage. The new light fixture is mounted. I even bought a new (interim) minimally offensive paper towel holder until we find a better one.

Because of the heat and lack of a/c, the cats laid under the bed most of the day. I've been brushing them, creating what Robert calls ghost kitties -- piles of cat hair. They seem to like the process.

First farm pickup on Tuesday; heat is supposed to break some time late Tuesday or Wednesday.

For readers who are out of town, the heat is going up to mid-to-high 90s during the day, down to 70s at night. This is hot for us, especially this early in the summer. I can only assume that the weather will turn again in a few days or weeks and we'll want to start up the wood stove at that point.