Since I’m going into the hospital on June 23^rd for a complete right knee replacement, I have to do many things now that I wouldn’t normally be doing yet. It’s been an abnormally cool spring, but for the last 3 days, I have been hauling out of storage all my shorts, tanks, sundresses – because I am pretty sure it will get hot shortly and I won’t be in shape to move clothes around. While I was doing that today, a large tin of buttons fell on my head and scattered widely. It’s an old lapsang oolong tin in which I once gave my mother many teabags of that flavor. She liked tea very much on occasion. After she used up the tea, she started keeping buttons in it, some of them now over a hundred years old. She had little to leave me when she died but one of the things I rescued from my father’s desire to throw every trace of her out the door was the tin of buttons. Now they were scattered. I picked them up and picked them up. Woody came and swept them up for a while. He put the box back on a high shelf. Then when I went to take out some skirts and pants to stow away till fall, a rain of buttons came down on me. They had lodged in the clothes. Woody has started staking tomatoes today. He laid the irrigation system in the two upper gardens first. I did a little planting today, my last until my leg is healed after the operation, although I plan to start seedlings on June 22^nd, more basil, more cukes, fall cole crops so in six weeks or so I can plant them. I am also preparing for my juried intensive poetry class, and as the reality of the class sinks in to my poets, I’m dealing with nearly 40 queries a day. This coming week, I have to finish getting ready for class. Monday Melenie has to Xerox the handouts, perhaps ten of them or more. Then today I’l; make preparations for the Belmont party this afternoon. I think we’ll have 18 or 19 guests. It is also acting as the 80^th birthday party for our friend Ramon. Today I found a card for him & wrapped his gift. The sunporch Jose built a decade ago had acted as a mudroom through the spring so for the last week, I have been gradually restoring it to its usual beauty. The rhododendrons are in full bloom all around it, pushing in on the screens. We usually have a Derby party, not a Belmont, but that was the day I was to read at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Today I’ll be doing a fair amount of cooking. I made little slips with the names of the horses who will be running with something about them as not everyone {or read maybe nobody but Dale] follows the field as I do. Thursday we had an appointment for our sweet cat Sugar Ray, his annual physical and shots @ 3 pm.  Loaded him up [he's easy but was very unhappy about it all] and set off, having allowed half an hour because of possible traffic, school busses.  We drove several miles on Route 6 and came to a screeching half.  Parking lot as far as the eye could see and NO traffic coming toward us. We sat there unmoving until we were late for the appointment, when i called the vet. Fifteen more minutes passed. No movement.  Nothing. Finally somebody up the line pulled out and turned around.  The car in front of us moved up a car length. We had enough room for woody to turn the truck around. After sitting there for 50 minutes, we went home. I made an appointment for next Tuesday.  We were the only car visible on the north side of the highway; the south side was a parking lot all the way back almost to Wellfleet center . Sugar Ray was very happy.  He thought it was a great idea to take him for a nice drive. He purred and purred. Woody heard this morning a woman pulled out from the Eventide motel and managed to ram a tracker trailer on the other side of the highway. The entire highway was blocked. i don't know how long the cars sat there, but 50 minutes was enough for us. I heard from a friend it was still tied up @ 4:30. She was taken to the hospital; the trucker was uninjured.