i'm a little stirred up because tomorrow's my birthday; i'll be sixty-nine, and that's an important age for several reasons. one is that seventy is now staring me in the face. a neighbor had a fire that burned the back end of the house, and there's still glass in the yard, and the bricks have an unsighlty burned charred look. my wife just said, "they think the son did it," and i thought she said "they think the sun did it."

mowing season has started with a passion, and both my neighbors have already got on it, but not me. i was stalling a little, but that's going to have to end. it's cloudy and overcast; looks like rain; that's my excuse for today. might have to mow tomorrow though even though it's my birthday. a better way of looking at it is celebrating the return to grass country. i feel that way about dandelions, random wildflowers, tulips, things that are coming up all over the place.

back to the nearby house that lost half of its backside. further down the street, about five blocks toward town, is a place where an entire house burned down, and took a nearby garage, several cars, and a piece of several other structures with it. it was a huge, colossal, burnt rubble when i happened upon it with one of the dogs one day. that fire had started, apparently, at about four in the morning and was raging by the time the fire department got to it. next to it was a house with sixteen people, almost all kids. maybe one of them started it. all of them survived it apparently, but several of the cars in the household didn't.

the one that's nearby got damage in the back porch area, but that area is close to where i walk the dogs and it irritates me that the broken glass is still sitting there what, three weeks later. my dogs don't have a problem with it; they just walk around. the owner strikes me as somewhat trumpish but i wouldn't swear to it. and, i haven't seen them around. it's like they moved out, after the fire happened and they realized it would require extensive remodeling.

i'm all about fixing up the lot so that ours looks at least as good as the ones around it. right now i'm resting from having swum, actually i swam four days this week, and i come home from that not all eager to go outside and do things like mowing and gardening which i'd really love to do. instead, i sit around and read my books which i do for marketing. i read theirs, someone reads mine. i've taken a wide tour of the indie world and enjoyed the feeling of retirement. the problem is, life keeps going fast by me, and i'm just sitting here reading.

my daughter has just walked home from school. will wonders never cease. it was about a mile and a half, and i didn't thik it would ever happen.