We lost some of the tomato plants I had started inside this spring, so we were a bit panicked imagining we would not have enough tomatoes. Tomatoes, it turns out, love hot dry weather, revel in the drought that is killing many of our annuals and perennials and stressing out trees after the gypsy moth denuding. We have tomatoes. We have many tomatoes. We have too many tomatoes. We’ve canned 27 pints of tomato sauce so far and 19 pints of paste tomatoes. Must can more paste tomatoes tomorrow. I was thinking when I wrote my title above of the original Star Trek episode, The Trouble with Tribbles. They were cute and cuddly but multiplied at a terrifying rate. Our tomatoes are beautiful and incredibly delicious but they are taking over the diningroom and kitchen. We cannot keep up with them. We are also getting GIANT peppers, too many cayenne peppers, more eggplants this summer than we’ve harvested in the past seven years together. I’ve frozen 22 lbs of beans and have no room for more in the freezer. Even the beets are doing very well. Two days ago, I made a large pot of beet borscht. We’ve had two meals from it so far. I am proceeding slowly on reading the mss. for my Columbus weekend workshop for eleven poets returning from my annual juried intensive workshop. Yesterday morning, poems for a contest I wasn’t expecting to arrive before Labor Day arrived and they want the results within two weeks. Yesterday I went for my second and last ablation in Sandwich, at the far end of the Cape. We got there early. Last time when the pain doctor did my right side, it was painful but fine within an hour of leaving there. Didn’t take anything. Made supper. Almost a normal day. This time was entirely different. The procedure on my left side was excruciating. Afterward I was in great pain and dizzy. It took us two hours and twelve minutes to get home on what is usually a 55 minute drive. Traffic this summer is bumper to bumper all of the time everyplace except early in the morning or late at night. Every day there are accidents, many of them fatal. it takes hours to get anyplace that normally takes minutes When we finally got home, I took more painkillers and iced my back.I felt very weak and unsteady on my feet. Finally by 7 pm the pain left me and although I was still weak, I was no longer dizzy. We watched the Patriots preseason game against the Chicago Bears. That long trip home in the car without ice on my back took a toll. Garrapolo started slow again but did well. Brissett was okay this time and the defense was terrific until the last five minutes, when they almost threw the game away.The combination of cheap gas and the fear of going to Europe this summer is filling up the Cape beyond capacity. Wednesday I was to eat lunch with my friend Gigi, but all the restaurants were full with long waiting times, so I ended up making a late meal for us, improvised but good enough. Today Woody will start harvesting our red cabbages. Because of the hot weather, we won’t have many. Woody has planted the seedlings I had started inside a month ago:bok choi, green cabbage, broccoli, Chinese cabbage and radicchio and more basil while I was lying on the couch with ice on my back. He gave them shade so they can grow in this heat. Today I start the second wave of cucumbers.   I’m late with them this year. Normally I have then in the garden a week to ten days before this point in the summer. This week, I’ll have to take time away from working on my poets’ mss. in order to judge the Comstock Review contest