things to be grumpy about: was hosing down the grasses in the yard, and hosed down the phone while i was at it, thus cutting us off from the world, at least temporarily; exhausted from a long term, handed in grades with other exhausted teachers; tried to manage database, and didn't get away until too late to buy a new phone; incontinent dog has control issues; cat has thyroid issues and is wasting away; wife is away, leaving wild children to their own devices and to my limited ones; steamy weather makes it virtually impossible to do anything but swim in the front yard.

things to be grateful for: addition is done, at least as far as we did it (see below); looks good on the outside, seems to keep the rain out, large enough for a barn dance up above, and gives us room to move back into; 4 boys are home, and healthy, and even happy (see below); sister coming to visit from afar; the swimming and hosing down is really fun, hot as it is, and, i'm free, mentally, for about a week, until school starts and we all come 'round again, may do some writing, or something besides the endless pop.

much as i feel bad about the cat, which is my own, an iowan, and may have to go to the vet, on balance i can see that there really is no comparison, above, between the two. the pop and poster art allows me to distort and twist the very things that do the same within me...yet i'm sure a.w. would agree, it would be easier to do it to someone who is already an icon, a symbol, a distorted image in the minds of the masses. my boys, i hope, will at least forgive me, which may be more than history does for a.w....more about that later.

in town, the stenciled painted saluki paws are coming back on the roads, as the town and college gear up for onslaught of 20000 students coming back, everyone fresh, ceremony all over the place, everyone ready for a new year. we bleary-eyed teachers, hardly catching a breath from 11-hour grading marathons, run over the stenciled paws in the road- my boys call them "clues" from a well-known kids movie. get a clue, i say, & it's time to spray the saluki pop around the web, a little, maybe, cover up the fact that, really, it's a little stale up there. nobody needs to know that, though.