I’ve been doing little fixes to THE HOUR OF MY DEATH all week.  I feel pretty good about it now.

 One afternoon this week, my old friend from anti-war anti-imperialist days came over.  We had had a wonderful lobster dinner with them last Friday. Then she and I got together to catch up and chat on the sunporch. Eleanor is allergic to cats and can’t come in the house, but the screened in sunporch was fine for her. We are both having mobility problems and we both have pacemakers. So it goes, although she is ten years younger than me. We exchanged presents. I gave her an agate necklace I found up in Maine last October. She gave me a beautiful scarf for this coming winter from London.  It’s hard to believe in winter with the summer’s so hot.  However, I believe the Outer Cape is cooler than almost anyplace else in the country except for mountaintops and caves.  When it’s in the 90’s on the mainland, often it’s in the high 70’s here. Right now, it’s 68 in Wellfleet according to the Weather Service.

I had one serious problem that Dale discovered last Monday – when we began printing out the book, it did not look like what we saw on the screen. Rather a wide grey area was on the right, presumably a space to add comments. I couldn’t send it to my agent that way. I followed direction in the Dummies book; I followed directions from Microsoft on line. No luck. I had sent the manuscript to Melenie in an email. Since she’s a writer too, we’ve had some of the same problems. She knew what to do, fixed the book on her computer and sent it to me.  Now on Tuesday, we can print it out and also send the corrected copy via email to my agent Robin Straus.

Tomatoes have slowed down. Which is to say, there are only 5 platters of tomatoes in the dining room, not 10.  Far more manageable. We canned some more and the last Italian tomato sauce yesterday. Woody did the shopping Thursday instead of Friday, but there was a massive traffic jam from some construction accident and Route 6 was impossible. All the traffic was now on the little two-lane twisty side roads. It took him hours longer to shop – not the actual shopping but just sitting in the car and occasionally creeping forward a foot at a time.

I’m freezing beans slowly but steadily. I want to reach 20 lbs. So far, 16. I have until Tuesday to do last tweaks on my book before we submit it to my agent Tuesday. Melenie is reading it, the first person besides my agent, who read the previous draft. She’s finding typos here and there. I correct them then.

It has been cool except for one day recently and we’ve been able to sleep with the windows open. It actually got chilly last night. We are blessed – so far. But the ocean is warm and hurricanes threaten. The cool weather has slowed down the tomatoes but not the beans. Hoping for more zucchini and patty pans. We’re eating the last of the red cabbages. Woody thinned and hilled up the leeks this week and I’ll cook the slender ones.

Tonight, a small company supper with Stephanie and Tasha.