Finally a trip to the Farmer's Market this morning! We've missed it so many times this summer for one reason or the other. We took the Elephant's Child...I mean Tucker (it's all that "'satiable curiosity," you see)...with us, and it was cool enough on the inbound leg to put the windows down. I held him firmly by his harness and he stuck his nose out the window and sniffed at the glorious air and streets and grass and trees, and opened his eyes wide as police cars blaring sirens came roaring around the corner. (On the way home he just put his head out the window in bliss.)

We found a handicapped space on the square, still a long distance for James to limp with his cane. I had Tucker on the short leash we bought and keep in the truck; his nose was everywhere until we got to the line of booths themselves and then his eyes were wide as he sniffed fruits and ginger and bacon and chicken salad and cookies and vegetables and flowers and freshly-made bread, and dozens and dozens of people and several dozen dogs, including two golden labradoodles that rather took him aback, and a tiny female Yorkshire terrier who gave him what for in no uncertain terms in high-pitched barks. We had vegetables and just got a pot pie, pumpkin bread, chicken salad, and some dog biscuits, and talked to the chicken salad guy (whose name I've forgotten again after I deliberately asked him about it a month ago) and the Big Daddy dog biscuit lady.

Then we came home and had breakfast, and James was soon off to his club meeting. Now, yesterday, when he went to the doctors (two appointments, only he didn't get much out of the neurologist because the dingbats who took his MRI never sent the results to the doctor), he came home with a home sleep test C-PAP unit. It has to be back by 3:30 Monday afternoon or we have to pay $$$ rent on it. but I don't want him to lose anymore work; he's already been out so much with the appointments and the falls on the stairs and on the ice. So I dragged out my work folder and did two purchase orders and set another one up and made a bunch of notes, so I don't get behind and won't feel so guilty when I ask to leave early on Monday to return the C-PAP unit. I'm not fifteen minutes from the sleep clinic—it'll take me almost as long to park in their stupid garage—and it's much more sensible for me to return it. I have the leave time, just not the time, if that makes any sense.

After that I had just enough time to eat a little, get changed again, and walk Tucker before Alice and Ken came to pick me up for Ron's birthday dinner (since James was already at Town Center for his meeting). I got to ride in Alice's new Prius, the red one she named "Scotty" since he's the only Red Shirt on Star Trek that ever survived. Her daughter Aubrey is now driving her old Prius, the black one, "Darth Prius."

James was already at Keegan's Irish Pub with the rest of the party (eighteen in all; pity Daniel and Clair couldn't make it) and we had a great two hours. Ron got lots of books or things to buy books with, and a charger for his new iPhone, and the food was delicious: I had an open-faced pot roast sandwich with wonderfully tender meat, and James had meatloaf, properly made with brown gravy. His portion was so large that he took half home with my mashed potatoes (I don't eat potatoes and bread in the same meal, and, given the choice, will take the bread over the potatoes any day) and has a lunch for next week. Ron and Lin said they eat there often and have never had anything poorly cooked or bad tasting. They also ordered some appetizers for the table: "Irish spring rolls" with corned beef and cabbage in them, "Black and Tan" onion rings, and battered mushrooms. For dessert cupcakes were brought out, but we took ours home for tomorrow's dessert because we wanted to split a slice of the chocolate indulgence cake. Oh, boy, was it indulgent, very dark and rich.

After parting, we went to Barnes & Noble with our coupons so James could pick up John Ringo's new book. I grabbed the time-travel steampunk book The Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy, which sounds bizarre; just the title is worth it. I picked up the new "Mad" magazine for a laugh: Leo Laporte is caricatured in their spoof of Shark Tank. But, damn, there are still no fall magazines out but "Country Sampler" and "Cottage Journal" and the Hallowe'en cross-stitch magazine I bought last week. They usually start coming out in August! I hope "Vermont Life" and the other travel magazines have some good leaf photos this year. They've been positively puny the last couple of years. And I'll have to wait a bit for "Landlove" and "Landscape" since they're imported from Great Britain.

And finally home. We watched Tucker literally bounce off walls, or rather bounce off us for a while, then James went down to his "man cave" for the first time in ages, perhaps since before Willow died. I've been trying to compose a story for "Reminisce." I still haven't sent them the story I wrote about my mother and my uncle Nicky trying to get out of moving from Ohio to Rhode Island in 1924; that was a funny family story for years.

Labels: books, dogs, food, friends, magazines, pets, shopping, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:58:00 PM

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