So, this is just a little bulletin from the planet where we start drinking beer and smoking heavily at 4:00 pm, okay? Things are good here. We call it the weekend, and it has been lovely. My friend E came over and got my computer back on line, which is why there are suddenly a bunch of new pictures on my Flickr stream. Yesterday, after several Baltimore phone calls, my friend C and I drove up to Bat Cave to see if A & D were still alive, since their phone had been out for like a week. They were. There had been a phone knocking out thunderstorm. Their daughter is out of town and they were in no hurry to reestablish connection with the outside world and who can blame them? We hung out for hours on their lovely cool porch and then wandered up the alpine meadow past their house where everything is lovely and green and washed in a sort of muted glow that makes us all look like we’re posing for an early 70s album cover. Impossibly cool. Even though A had a giant beetle on his ankle which hissed so that we could all hear it and which eventually made A change from someone who was saying, “Wow! Check out those stripes on him!” to someone who was saying, a bit pitifully really, “Please get it off me.”

In other news, M is home. He called last night while I was still up in Bat Cave to ask if the house was locked, which was the first I’d heard of him coming home – although, you know, I’m quick that way and figured that that statement was pretty much a hint that he was, like, almost home – and then when I came home, lo, I was right and M is back. Already the ice cream is gone.

Giant thanks and kudos to E, frequent commenter on this blog, who sacrificed several hours of his Sunday evening to fix my computer and hang out with me and S. Big enormous thanks. This is awesome.