This is Mom's cat Glory. She cooperated and didn't run away when I tried to take her picture.

I brought Gillie with me and we ended up staying for most of the day. A young couple bought Mrs. Kazala's house four doors down from Mom and they had an open house. I went to it with her and met Gary and Michele and the other new couple (Ryan and Melinda) that live the next door down as well. All nice folks. Also saw some of the "old" neighbors too--Margot and Charlie, Mrs. Bishop, and the gal from across the street, Adrienne. Boy did we all go down memory lane trying to remember all the people that have lived on the street in the last 40 years--who lived in which house, etc. In talking to Adrienne, Mom and I realized that we know her sister-in-law who also works at Intel. Talk about six degrees of separation... We stayed for a few hours and then headed home. Mom made a comment about the effort required to walk up the sidewalk and I told her to be glad she wasn't dragging a loaded canoe up a rocky, potholed trail with tree roots running across it.

We got home and decided to watch a movie. James has a bunch of movies that we probably would never choose ourselves but I chose "American History X" which was a very thought provoking dramatization of racial hatred. Ed Norton did an excellent job as Derek, a neo-Nazi gang leader. Even though it had very graphic language, sex and violence, I would recommend it. When the movie was over, I went home.

We found the peach place on Sauvie Island--first we bought sweet corn, 5/$1, and then went across the street to the orchard where the ripe peaches were. Mom picked 13 peaches and I picked 7 for $4 (they were $1/lb.). I could have sworn mine weighed more. I guess Julie didn't pick any. While I was picking, I got a call from my nephew Grant asking if I was with Grandma. "Yes, but she's across the orchard, what do you need?" "I need a ride to work at 4:30pm." "Well I'll ask her and call you back." This little conversation took place at about 2:15pm. I asked Mom when we were within speaking distance whether she could take Grant to work and she said probably not. I tried to get hold of him but there was no answer. I tried again after a while--If we did get home it would be very close so when I called and Grant finally answered, we told him we wouldn't be home in time--he'd have to walk or get a ride from James.

We wanted to go get something to eat so decided to go to the Helvetia Tavern. I ordered a Jumbo Burger and Mom ordered a regular cheeseburger and fries. She told me not to get any because the orders were large. Not as large as my hamburger! What a whopper (no pun intended). Two patties and an oversized bun. Thank goodness they didn't charge me to grill the onions. It was very good though and I ate all of it plus a few of Mom's fries.

When we dropped Julie off, I asked her just before she went through the gate into her yard, whether she still had blueberries. "Yes," she said. Mom and I wasted no time picking over her three blueberry bushes. I had about 3 quarts and Mom probably had more, and there were still berries on the bushes. So much for peaches!

The clincher for the whole day though was when we got over to Mom's house, Grant was there! I couldn't believe it--because he couldn't get a ride, he didn't go to work. He's only had the job for seven working days and he calls in sick??? UNBELIEVABLE.

This is a picture I took of Gillie on Sunday after she returned from a walk with Grant. Both Gil and Sadie were panting heavily as it was warm that day--especially for Gil with that long coat.

I need to finish my Week 6 blog TODAY! I have 2.5 days to go and I'm determined to finish today.

I took my car over to my neighborhood Les Schwab to have the brakes checked. They are within the 3 year/25,000mi warranty period and I just want to have them checked and also see if they can do anything about the parking brake. It doesn't release the way it should. I leave it and walk home. During the time the car is with them, three different guys call me--all with a different recommendation. When I go to pick it up at 2pm, the guy starts to charge me and I tell him "Ken" called and said they didn't have to do the rear brakes like "Robert" had gotten my OK to do when he called me. Another guy, whose name I can't remember, also called to tell me that the parking brake was something that was electronic and that they couldn't fix it. The guy that was assisting me ran out to the garage to find out the true status and came back and said I was good to go. Of course if they had needed to do the brakes, it would have been a freebie for me as I am still on warranty. Kind of makes you wonder, huh? They did flush them out though and replaced the fluid, I think.

Tomorrow I'll take the car for an oil change.

I have finished Week 6!!! What a relief. I send an email to all my friends and relatives announcing that it is available for viewing and then head off to body sculpting.

I LOVE CORN! I mentioned the other day that we bought corn while we were out at Sauvies Island to pick peaches. Well I had mine tonight--actually I ate one ear the other night with some other corn I had bought at Safeway. I had to test it out to see if it was truly sweet (it was, as was the corn from Safeway) because if it's not sweet you might as well not eat it (go ahead call me a sweet corn snob). Anyway, I love corn pretty much any way I can get it--popcorn, corn nuts, corn flakes, corn tortilla chips, Fritos corn chips, cornbread, corn Chex, and of course, corn-on-the-cob. Now I'm drawing a blank on the additional forms of corn I like... Well you get the point.

This was the first Saturday in August that I was able to go to Jazzercise, and it just happened to be Yachiyo's birthday. Marcelline brought balloons and we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her. Here we are doing a tough ab routine with the ball, "SOS". It really kicks.

After coffee and on my way home, I dropped the car off at the Firestone place to get the oil changed. They called me after a while to tell me that it needed a bunch of other stuff too--there was oil leaking so I needed some kind of new valve gasket ($139); I have a leak in the water pump and that should be replaced ($303); the serpentine belt is cracked so I need a new one of those ($100); and cooling system should be flushed ($70). I just know they're trying to soak me for more stuff than my car needs... So I catch our "friendly mailman" Doug, and ask him what he thinks. He says that I should only get what is most critical and forget the other stuff. When I call them back I ask what things are worst and decide to have the valve gasket and serpentine belt replaced--I can wait and see with the water pump and cooling system. After all, I haven't had any idiot lights going on in the car, and haven't noticed any different (bad) sounds so I'm not going to shell out the money this time. Hopefully I've made the right decision.