Dog Days of Summer

Sorry, no pictures this week. The dog days of Summer have arrived. Although the days are shorter and the evenings cooler, the heat of the day is beginning to be oppressive as the grass is stressed and the Dallis Grass and Crabgrass seem to flourish in the heat. I've been waging my own personal battle with these elements and so far they are winning, but I have gained a foothold in about a third of my lawn and I'm gaining on the insurgents. I was out last night with my weapon of mass destruction, the tank sprayer and a solution of MMSA hitting the offending weeds where they live. On another topic, Earl was over this past weekend and pointed out that I killed one of my crepe myrtle trees by weedwhacking the bark at the bottom of the tree and completely stripping the bark. The tree is about six years old and one of the grander decorations in my yard with it's annual display of bright pink blooms. Darla and I will replace the tree with a fifteen gallon variety and hope that it grows quickly.

We finally met with a tile man, this time an immigrant from Romania named Florian. He spent the better part of two hours at our house and gave us a great quote on all of the tile work that we wanted done, including granite countertops in our master bath and full tile work in our bathtub and shower. He was to do about 810 square feet of tile, including our front entry hallway, all three bathrooms, laundry room, hallway off the garage and the kitchen. He would use traveltine in the front entry, hallway and bathrooms and ceramic tile for the kitchen, laundry room, hallway and bathroom. I speak in past tense, because I found out that he is not licensed by the California Contractors Board, nor does he appear to have a business license in Roseville. We are back to square one and I will be calling contractors who I have checked out on the Contractor's board website. Earl pointed out a truck at Home Depot with a tile man's name and number on it, but he isn't listed on the contractor's board website either.Oy vey.

Darla and I went to see the Trailer Park Troubadours on Friday night. It was a smaller version of the Flock Rock that has been held at the Placer County fairgrounds the last three years. It is a fundraiser by the Active 20-30 club and they barely broke even last year. They decided to move the show to a mansion in Roseville called the Victorian. It is a large facility designed for weddings and private parties. They held the concert outside and limited the tickets to 200. The city has a noise ordinance and they had to be done with the concert by ten pm. As is the norm, the concert which was to begin at 7 pm promptly started at 7:25. At ten PM the band was just starting their encore when the police showed up and told the owner of the house to shut down the party. She walked out and tried to get the band to quit and was booed off the stage. She left for about five minutes and returned and was gesturing loudly for the band to shut down, again they ignored her. Finally at 10:10 PM the electricity was shut off and the band went quiet. Two police cars were still on scene talking to the owner of the Victorian and the President of the charity when we left at 10:30. I'm guessing that they will be looking for a new venue to hold the concert again next year. We had a ball and met a couple of Darla's friends from work and their husbands.

Earl was in town this weekend trying to get a buyer of a hot tub at his rental to pick up his purchase. I played golf on Saturday (42+43=85) missing the cut for the Rose Cup team. You have to shoot under your handicap to get in. 69 was the cutoff and my 72 was good for an "attaboy". Earl picked up a refrigerator from my Personal Lines manager and delivered it to our house. The boys met him and helped load it up. It is about a five year-old Admiral that Darla deemed not nice enough for our kitchen, so it is in the garage cooling our sodas and acting as an extra freezer. It was apparently too "plasticy" according to Darla and white in color. Somehow the white clashes with our almond cooktop. Hey it has ice and water in the door, which our thirteen year old almond fridge doesn't, but the kitchen is definitely Darla's domain. They then took our old garage fridge to the dump and paid $27 to send it to the freon graveyard.

I showed up at Earl's after golf and found Earl and his spa buyer in the backyard of the rental. I was ready to help load the spa, but the buyer was a couple of beers to the far side of sober and was there to do some reconnaissance. He said that he "might" be there on Sunday to pick up the tub, but he wasn't sure. The new tenants are moving in today and have little kids. In the process of disassembling the gazebo Earl "accidentally" spilled a large glass of this bozo's iced beer. This guy was a serious nut job and he finally staggered out of there after saying some inappropriate things to Earl in the course of conversation, including some comments about his own wife best left unmentioned. Earl was getting pretty peeved with this doof and finally called him yesterday morning and told him to either pick up the spa or he'd take it up to Paradise, that it HAD to be out of there on Sunday. Somehow that lit a fire under Mr Miller High Life and he showed up about two to get the spa. We had the boys come over and finally got it packed up and Earl and I went with him to his house and we delivered it to his front yard. I told Earl to take his check to a branch of the guy's bank first thing this morning and cash it.

Frances was able to join Darla and I at church yesterday and we listened to a guest pastor speak about his death experience. He was legally dead in an operation for about seven minutes and was revived and had an out of body experience in the operating room and a close encounter with God. The pastor has a church in Cincinnati that has 6000 members, but was a terrible speaker. He fidgeted and wandered around and ran off on rabbit trails and really made me appreciate Rick. This pastor claimed he had the gift of "gathering", which if he was speaking of moss I might believe.

Well, I'd best get on to my week. I will be in Modesto on Wednesday to see the gals in the office there. Thursday I will get a new Flowmaster dual exhaust and K&N chrome cold air intake installed on the Mustang. I'm not quite through with my midlife crisis just yet. Keep your feet on the ground, but keep your hands reaching for Heaven. Ciao.