This week, the weather has been far more pleasant then it has been all August. The air was cooler and drier, so that we could sleep with fresh air and without air conditioning.  It was conducive to gardening for a change.  I planted fall lettuce.  Since the cukes and cilantro I started died, I planted seeds instead.  We continue getting only a few tomatoes and beans – vegetables we are used to being overwhelmed with.  Not this year. The phlox is in full bloom and we keep bouquets on the table. Schwartzie likes to eat phlox.  I remember when I was a child, I liked to pick individual flowerets and suck the nectar.  He continues adopting mice that come in, playing gently with them and protecting them from the other cats.  We put one unharmed but rather angry mouse outside this morning. Earlier we had a big rain for the first time in five weeks.  Everything perked up outside.  During the drought, we lost some plants since we can’t water everything from the well and we give preference always to the vegetables.  We are still fighting the plague of rabbits – rabbits, rabbits everywhere, unafraid of us and snacking on everything green or delicious. We managed to save three eggplants and six stuffing peppers from them. No hot peppers this year – all down their gullets.

I had a week off physical therapy as one of the the rapists injured my ankle last time.  Yesterday I went back.  Three or four more weeks left.

With the poetry book together, I went back to writing poems this week – two of them.  Tuesday [we’re not working Labor Day Monday of course] I hope we can get the manuscript together on Dale’s computer and then work on acknowledgements.  That’s the next big step. We’ll both work on that.  Probably 85% of the poem have been published so we have to run down where and when.  I hope to get the ms. off to my agent on  September 9th, but it might take till the 16th.  I had promised to have it in by the 9th but I don’t know if we can.  I hope so. Then I have to work with a web designer to update my page and solve some other longstanding problems.  It’s time to start thinking about small or university presses for my novel THE HOUSE AT HOPE’S END  since no one in NYC seems interested in it. I also want to learn to use a sewing machine if I possibly can. 

Hurricane season has started and it is a constant worry here. We’re very vulnerable and there’s no way to evacuate. 

Tuesday I went off to Hyannis with two friends, Martha and Lois.  We had lunch at Bamboo and then went to three stores.  I was able to walk around, although I paid for it the next day. But it meant to me that I can goto Maine in September as we planned to do. I’m not fond of going to lunch, but it seems to be the only way to socialize with women friends.  I hate to break up the day and I adamantly refuse to drink anything but soda or lemonade, or I lose the whole afternoon. I only drink at supper or later.  Liquor on an empty stomach puts me to sleep. At home I just have a small yogurt and apiece of fruit then go back to work or outside. Many of my women friends who are close to my age don’t work any longer, but I do.  I’m on a different sort of schedule.  I had to cancel lunch with these friends a couple of weeks ago because I needed the time to get things ready for Dale on Monday so we could proceed with the poetry collection.