James texted in the early afternoon asking if we had work he could do for pay. Ron and I decided to hire him to help us clean the house for 2 hours.

He vacuumed, Bona’d the floors and even made supper for us! Nice job: grilled burgers with cheese and bacon, squash. I made sweet potato fries and brownies.

Did more watering today: the U (Ron) and areas that I didn’t get to yesterday, like the front of the fence, the roses, the veggie garden. Watered the front lawn.

James was pleased to see his strawberries and his tree. We had a great conversation with him at supper about his plans for college and career.

I picked up several types of twine at Mahoneys as well as plants for the shed. I repotted the violas and put them in the shade. Also planted some Dusty Miller from Attaquin.

Stopped at Breakaway for more dryer sheets. Did the transfer station run with James.

Wish we could go back 46 years so I could trade places with Ron.

I’d have transferred my college credits to Stanford (per Ron) and got myself a good job with benefits; moved Peter and spouse to California. Bought a house. Avoided the hippie life with all its ramifications.

He passed up a lot of opportunities. In the early 70’s, we could have positioned ourselves to accrue a bundle in home equity.

Ron asked me yesterday if I got satisfaction from doing for myself, as in the garden.

Truth be told, as of yesterday and maybe today, I wouldn’t have minded being handed it on a silver platter. Then again, I don’t know the consequences of being that spoiled, either.

I love my yard and little house, no matter how they came to be.

Years ago, when I worked at the MITRE Corporation, two of my reports started courting.

He had a house on the Cape with a garden, and one day, she walked in with an armload of flowers.

That made quite an impression on me.

The person with the flowers was, perhaps still is petite, dark-haired, big-eyed. The kind of person who gets armloads of flowers out of simple appreciation for her prettiness.

I, on the other hand, am mannish-looking, with small eyes, a broad nose, flat cheekbones, a prominent chin and a too-small mouth. The kind of person who gets abuse from men and hateful stares, or gets called “sir” in public meetings.

Ron had given me some lovely flowers a few days ago, and I coddled them along for as long as I could, but today I had to send them to compost.

Ron sighed a bit about that, he loves flowers and growing things generally, so I promised to make an arrangement from our garden.

This is the result. An armload of cut flowers. From my garden. On the Cape.

Ron drove the van to GMC/Hyannis last evening without incident.

We went by truck to Plymouth today for a seminar on knee replacement surgery. Picked up some nice duds at Savers, briefly checked out Pinehills and did a small shop at Market Basket.

Good to be home before the traffic. It’s 8° cooler in the house than the blazing 86° outside.

Since we’ve decided not to schlep to Wareham, we can actually look forward to Fourth of July this year: only 3 weeks away.

Last night’s dinner was great: beef kabobs that Ron had marinated, salad and a used lemon meringue pie.

Drove Alpha to her weekly session with her therapist and Robert to work. Peter is in SF for conferences this week.

Planted the tomato plants that Emma gave us. She’d called us on Monday afternoon with an invite to visit and have supper.

We got to see Gabriel; what a sweet baby!

Spotted five tomatoes in the vegetable garden!

Numbered the soaker hoses: 21. Hope to organize a watering schedule.

Laura invited us for dinner, and we got to visit with her, Joe and Laura’s sister Ellen. Lucy the cat is getting used to her surroundings and made several forays outside. Landscape work continues in their yard with a complete transplant of the foundation shrubs.

…, laundry, New York Times, and the usual Sunday chores as well.

We’ve had some “used” prickly pears in the frig for two months. I finally prepped the ones that were still edible today. Quite tasty!

Roses started blooming today.

Watered the flowers along the fence – 3 soakers – and Emme’s garden. Painted more markers.

Ron power-washed the front siding, front door, windows, lamp post and garden cart at Edgewater while I did the transfer station run and some raking in the grass garden.

I fell asleep on the couch.

We vowed to do nothing but it didn’t turn out that way.

Put the grill back together on the porch. Did more watering (rhodies and the corner garden).

Brought the wishing well base, months in the making, to Edgewater. Ended up mowing the back yard and picking up two more bushels of grass in the process. Ron swept the driveway.

Ice cream for dinner. Watched “Anita”.

The students’ presentation was outstanding. I was honored to write a sponsorship check and give a very short spiel about TEALS.

Ron watered just about everything in the back yard yesterday and power-washed the grill.

My modest contribution was to pull off the minor miracle of a decent evening meal: haddock (on sale at Roche and purchased that afternoon), fresh bread (a Senior Center giveaway), salad (made yesterday by Ron) and brussel sprouts (frozen).

Work is well underway across the street. Laura gave me a tour and invited me to try out their new patio chair: heaven!

I spent some quality time on the phone with a forebearant representative of the mail order prescription company. Looks like I can save some money and a lot of hassle.

Ron got his Bluetooth fixed, thanks to a patient and highly competent cusotmer service rep who walked him through a solution to his problem – on the phone – when a live person could not.

He also booked an appointment with GMC. The stupid van is stalling again.

The conservatives on the Supremes were absolutely right in Kelo vs. New London, an atrocious give-away to Pfizer at the expense of seven citizen homeowners.

The dissenting opinions of O’Connor and Thomas are particularly insightful and in this case, clairvoyant.

In spite of repeated efforts, the redeveloper (who stood to get a 91-acre (370,000 m2) waterfront tract of land for $1 per year) was unable to obtain financing, and the redevelopment project was abandoned. As of the beginning of 2010, the original Kelo property was a vacant lot, generating no tax revenue for the city.[2] In the aftermath of 2011’s Hurricane Irene, the now-closed New London redevelopment area was turned into a dump for storm debris such as tree branches and other vegetation.[13] As of February 2014, it was still vacant.[14][15]

I did a light pruning of the blueberry bushes, which are sad again this year, and dug up a big weed that was crowding the Clematis.

Raked leaves and dumped another 40 pounds of lime. Found room for a couple of bags of top soil and compost in the shedette. Spread more grass seed on the shady area near the vegetable garden.

First Stella d’Oro today. We’ve been enjoying the lilacs. We tried mending a big branch that had started to split. “Splinted” it for now, just ordered parafilm grafting tape for a better bond.

Billed Jim for preowned detail. Working on a couple of other small projects.