And the battle goes on.

     At the last Town Meeting we passed a warrant item allowing chickens in suburban yards, a ruling apparently embraced with enthusiasm.

Fuzzy Afternoon

It probably says something about our social life that the highpoint of our weekend was a picnic for dogs.

What global warming?

     Yesterday I climbed out of bed, pulled on socks, sweatpants, sweatshirt, sneakers, and parka, hitched up the tiny dog to her leash and took her out for her morning pee. 
     This morning at exactly the same time of day, I climbed out of bed, pulled on shorts and t-shirt, and stepped into my flip-flops and took the tiny dog out. 
     Today it's in the 90s, 
     Tomorrow night it will be 46 degrees.
     New England is a whimsical place.
      On the plus side, Mamie got a bath today minus the scary hair dryer, but the rest of the day will feature lots of sitting for everyone.

Before Nutrition

 I remember my grandmother telling about her shame at school in Mangum, Oklahoma when she had to take “dirty bread” out of her lunch pail. Even back then my forward-thinking great-grandmother Lucy Wilson had already figured out the benefits of whole wheat bread.

And I like to think my mother approved of watermelon for breakfast because of its antioxidants and amino acids. (In reality, a grumpy kid in the blazing hot Virginia summer mornings could have been a factor.)

But John Gray’s recent post at Going Gently about his sheep and their love of white bread triggered a couple of memories from the 1950s food pyramid.

It’s been years since I’ve had one, but every now and then I’m tempted to pick up the ingredients for a baloney sandwich: spongy white bread, Miracle Whip, and the ultimate illicit pleasure, a big pack of baloney.

Granted, your peanut butter and jelly sandwich was usually bleeding grape jelly through one side by the time you opened your metal lunch box in the cafeteria, but the bread itself was great for wadding into grey balls and flicking at your neighbor.

And in spite of my mother’s offerings of a crunchy peeled white turnip or celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins for a snack, just as common as an after-school treat at our house was white bread spread with margarine and a generous sprinkling of white sugar.

Emptying the Basement

    

      In spite of a monsoon weekend, our tag sale went off without a hitch. Miraculously, the morning was chilly but dry – a good thing since we had cleverly positioned several things on the lawn to lure shoppers farther in to our garage.

Begging for Boxes

We have a tag sale on Saturday, and of course the weatherman is tossing around predictions of four straight days of rain beginning guess when.

Hoover Horror

Sorry – I didn’t mean to drop off the edge of the blog world. My absence is due more to mundanity and inertia than a madcap social life.

Public Service Announcement

     It's not often I have a chance to use this blog for good rather than just blowing off steam.
     (The fact that it's a slow news day here could be a factor, too, so maybe I'm not all that altruistic after all.)

    Anyway, one of my favorite bloggers, Henny,  at Henny Penny Lane  included some helpful advice in her comment about my !!!TICK!!! adventure and I'm quoting it verbatim:

"One easy way to remove a tick that is buried and biting is to rub a little liquid hand soap on the tick and wait a few seconds, and the tick will easily come off."

     I haven't tried it yet, but anyone who spends the amount of time she does in her garden knows what she's talking about.