Today we had grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches and Caesar salad. Yesterday we had egg salad; the makings were free. We pretty much coasted food-wise through the rest of the day.

Today we did laundry and changed the sheets.

The Silene Virginica planted last year has started to bloom. The peony in the driveway garden is beautiful this year. The Winterberry is a surprise, much fuller than when I planted it, pathetic stick thing that it was.

I was cross with the Berkshire Conservation District when I picked it up at Holiday Brook Farm last September, thinking they stuck me with a dud. Guess they hadn’t. Can’t remember the other two that I got at the same time. The plant identifier app is ambiguous, gave me a couple of different readings.

We stopped for the first time at Mount Williams Greenhouses. Brought home a six pack that looks like penstemon but isn’t. Doesn’t matter, makes me happy we stopped at Whitney’s yesterday for the real deal.

Happened to come across photos of my old gardens on Dixon. How I’ve missed them. It has healed my heart somewhat to bring their like to our property on Henderson.

Ron mowed, front and back. Yard looks great.

They had to put Rugby to sleep and brought him home today. Devastating for them and sad for the rest of us. He was a good doggo and we looked forward to seeing him as he greeted us at the shop.

Rugby was the first member of Andi’s family whom I met when I first visited Remedy Hall. He was skittish then, no surprise there, it was a dungeon, and much happier in their present location which is nicer, brighter and more spacious. He was lucky to have such good “parents”.

They are planning a memorial on his birthday, July 30, at Wild Soul River. It will be a remembrance ceremony for everyone who has lost a pet.

I am trying not to cry. Will miss him.

Ron had an accident.

We went to Pittsfield for framing material. On the way back stopped at Whitney’s for a Penstemon and at Walmart for my meds and at West’s for beer. Picked up sweets at Wild Oats for Andi and Dan, dropped them off at Remedy.

I tried ordering glasses from eyeconic but after multiple failures gave up.

Luckily it’s a pleasant day, cooler than yesterday and the rain held off. I watched the ceremony online.

Was intrigued by the Phi Beta Kappa speaker’s deeply introspective oration, so much so that I transcribed it. Several recent cultural references, like “What are your Whys” and James Baldwin’s “The Creative Process”.

My restless crazed monkey brain keeps me from figuring out my Whys. I get to “Survival” and come to a dead stop.

Ron did laundry.

The new bar code reader from eBay arrived yesterday; I confirmed that it can read and write to a document on the PC. Word’s barcode generator works great. Last week I figured out .bat files and database backup programming, this week maybe I’ll make progress on populating the orders table with barcode readings.

Rain started in the afternoon and continued for a while. Pollen was heavy, hoped at least some of it washed away.

Ron made corn for supper!

Ron’s eyeglasses were hanging on one of the chairs we use to play fetch with Jett.

I finally dragged out a wheelbarrow and added mulch to the driveway garden. Not a great day to work, hot and humid. The man at the hardware store said it feels like one of the Carolinas. Hoping for rain tomorrow, after the Williams College graduation in the morning.

I picked up Sweet 100’s, my favorite cherry tomato plants, $3 for a six pack, at the Farmer’s Market. Tried dropping off canned goods at the Food Pantry but although it’s advertised as open 24×7, the vestibule was locked.

Ron wanted red wine and framing wire, but he’d been drinking, so I drove him to Gold Leaf and then to Ace/Aubuchon. The sign for the wire was on the wrong aisle, but I hunted it down anyway.

Ron tore apart my framing project without asking me. Gave me yet another lecture – probably the 500th or 600th – about his framing work for his artist girlfriend. When I asked him to help me with mulching, he found an excuse not to. He did some vacuuming which was helpful.

Is this brain damage or bad character?

I made two nice pizzas with on-sale Brooklyn BRED traditional pizza crust, provolone and mozzarella cheese and tomatoes and sauce from the food pantries.

Strange, I had an idea that I wrote down, didn’t put online, and saw a YouTube video about the same subject. ESP with YouTube?

Another really nice day.

We got to the Brien Center in time for their twice a month mobile food distribution. Came home with produce, cereal and packaged chocolate chip muffins. Efficient setup. Dropped off strawberry Dannon yogurt at the Senior Center in the hope someone can use it.

Afterwards we had pizza, salad and dessert at the Berkshire Food Project. Ron picked up razor blades at CVS, then we did a quick shop for wine and cracker deals at Wild Oats Market.

I squared away our Spot insurance account and changed the deductible to keep the premium, which soared on renewal, pretty much the same.

Jett took his Sentinel med yesterday. Got it from Chewy with his original prescription. His doc sent a new prescription via email; he’s set for the next six months but great to have this for the future.

Have been doing Tai Chi exercises on the deck.

Yesterday I planted sunflowers by the side fence.

Also helped Ron pay his Local 7 invoices for the last 3 years. He’s been eligible for a waiver of stamps since he was 75 but had to get caught up before he could apply for the benefit.

Ron, confident in his ability to drive on known roads, did a transfer station run.

Finally called IGS about our performance guarantee. It’ll get computed in August, the 2nd anniversary of our solar installation. I was confused because I signed the contract in April 2024.

Ron is bereft, no glasses or hearing aid yet, but it’s a Top Ten day for weather.

We slept in very late, 10:30. Stomach was a wreck for a couple of hours. I barely made it to the Food Pantry before noon.

Have been wanting to call Jett’s vet for a while about his med, which he hated (Credelio Quattro). Ordered Sentinel (prevents heartworm disease, stop flea eggs from hatching, and treat and control tapeworms, whipworms, hookworms, and roundworms) for him at Chewy today to supplement his Seresto collar.

The vet said he’s set until his annual in July.

We stopped at the library, brought home free flowers from the neighbor on North Hoosac who donates them to the community and stopped at Walgreen’s for reading glasses for Ron, two for one in fact. He is much happier.

This evening, we attended Wild Soul River’s fifth anniversary open house and dropped by the antiques shop for crudites and Spirits for wine tasting. Chatted with a lady from the Chamber of Commerce about real estate values in North County. She said, wryly, it is bimodal: over a million or $200,000 and if you buy at $200,000, be prepared to spend a lot. I of course agreed with her!

Ron did a fantastic job with the back yard.

Hibiscus have started. I did some weeding around them.

Nice out today.

I’m making notes on setting up and running the .bat file to automate SQLExpress backups on Andi’s machine.

Changed sheets. Ron misplaced his glasses. We’ve looked for them for hours, everywhere but where they are.

I paid Home Depot for the Viburnum and sent $100 to IRS for self-employment tax.

Sent treat money to Bennett’s bank account, suggested using it for takeout.

Ordered a Wasp USB WCS3905 barcode scanner to use with Andi’s app.

Planted Borage seeds from the Library Seed Catalog in the corner garden next to the most recently transplanted Astilbe.

Someone has been eating the sunflower seeds!

Washed the spread.

Revived an old barcode reader project to work on this week.

Much frustration with using a .BAT file to backup a database. The file runs without errors but the backup doesn’t write. Feels like permissions but I don’t have a workaround yet.

Two deliveries from Walmart today, they separated my med from the groceries. Lots of frozen veggies and vitamins. The lady who put the order together must think we’re rabbits!

Watched stunning segment of MidasTouch in which Michael Popok lays out last week’s setbacks for Todd Blanch and the rest of the Trump DOJ including the tossing of the “Broadview Six” charges because of Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Mecklenburg’s prosecutorial misconduct.

Received a check from the good people at MRS.

Believe I’ve finally after many, many years found the elegant dance step performed in slow motion by an older lady at a lounge in San Francisco: the Toe Strut.

I gave the deck plants a decent watering this morning before 9. Then it rained this afternoon. So they should be good for this week.

One orange daylily is blooming in the garden by the driveway.

Have been working on a couple of projects, automating SQLExpress backups and RFID reading and writing to a database.

It had rained last night and was drizzly and on the cool side (50’s) today.

As we were leaving the house to attend a couple of big events in Town, a Walmart driver dropped off my new deck flower container.

We picked up a couple of six packs from Aubuchon to justify our parking there before attending the open house of the new fire station next door; it’s quite a building. We were given access to offices on the first floor and a gorgeous conference room on the second floor.

Volunteers from North Adams served burgers and hot dogs that were provided by the Station.

We got to see our friend Andi and her husband who is an Assistant Chief. It was a lovely, friendly crowd that evidently included people from Boston and other fire departments.

Afterwards we went to the Library for a multi-cultural fair with exhibits from a number of countries, community groups, Mount Greylock High School clubs and samples of Italian cookies. The library has a full seed catalog. I brought home Borage and Black Zucchini seeds.

Continued our travels with a grocery shop. Although we’d done a big shop earlier this week, it seems we can never remember everything we need.

Finally, we got soft serve at a new cafe/bakery occupying the old West End Market on West Main Street in North Adams.

Back home I planted flowers from the nursery in Bennington along with portulaca from Aubuchon in the new container. Also planted the six pack of cukes from Aubuchon in one of the raised beds.

I found the web page with the .bat script that I’d deleted yesterday. Back to it tomorrow.