Random notes

Ivan has a foot/shoe fetish. He loves to lie near my feet and rub them when I'm on the computer (once he's determined that he's not getting any more petting while my fingers are dancing on the keys). He also likes to go in the closet, smell the shoes, and chew on the rawhide bows on my good Lands' End slippers.

I'm still doing battle with the Great Respiratory Infection of 2006, though the second course of antibiotics has given me the upper hand.

If Kamikaze Girls isn't your thing, you might want to hit a local movie theater (discounted matinee of course) as Ken and I did and see A Prairie Home Companion. It's a fun, offbeat, and a truly enjoyable movie even if you have never heard the radio program. Even if you don't like the radio program. Guy Noir figures heavily in the plot, Shoe Band and Dusty & Lefty (as singers, not just cowboys) make an appearance, and yes, they do commercials. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are excellent actors and vocalists as mature gospel-singing sisters who have been making the county-fair rounds since childhood. And yes, the music is as good as on the show (though I didn't need quite so many verses of the "Bad Jokes" song.)

Our manager is on leave, so of course the roof leaked with all this rain and we've had an incursion of ants. Plus our lightbulbs were delivered broken for the second time in a row. And yours truly is in charge of course. Fortunately, our first Summer Reading Club event went well--a very nice young man did a fun and engaging "mad science" chemistry and physics show!

Did I mention Ivan's full name? Ivan Vorcatril the Wonderful, Czar of all the Russias and Pasadena, Hider in Vanities. (That last part of his title is courtesy of Tom Z.) We may have to add something about the foot fetish, though.

The bok choy I planted a couple of months ago with much trepidation is growing like crazy. We've eaten a lot of it. And will eat more. The cucumbers are going great guns and so are the johnny-jump-ups. They're jumping out of the pot and growing across the front of the building where we live!

Plus we've been seeing box turtles!! Ken rescued one from the road last week. So nature is doing well in our little corner of the world, sometimes with our help.