Goodness Me

Well, then. I'm sorry to have been away so long, but I am living between computers at the moment. I am writing now from my Fella's Linux OS in the basement, but even it cuts off my net connection every ten minutes or so that it deems I haven't been active (i.e. I'm composing a post and not loading another web page).

Last Monday night, the boy named R came to read with me. We got on swimmingly. He read to me, I read to him, he read to me, I read to him, he read to me. Selections included George's Marvelous Medicine and the first in the Magic Tree House series. R read three chapters of the latter to me, and I hope to knock out the rest of that book before I leave for the UK in mid-September. After that, I'll have him read the rest of the series (!) to me.

I admit that I didn't go to Cliveden Park this evening because Clyde went away on business, taking his keys to the House with him. Although frankly I'm not keen on driving in that part of Philadelphia alone anyhow. So I didn't go tonight. I feel guilty because there was really no way for me to tell the kids we weren't coming, except not to go...

We've been harvesting lots and lots of tomatoes, and yesterday I dug up four rows of potatoes. I have photos, but it's a drag having to fiddle about with two computers to load them up while I'm down here, so I'll hold off for a few more days. The good news on this front is that I will be buying a new computer in the next few days. A NEW computer! Wow, such extravagance. I'm very excited.

There's an interesting story in The Independent today about the medicine Vioxx. The company that manufactured the drug is one of the local big companies in our neighbourhood. We've been hearing a lot about Vioxx in recent months. As a matter of fact, when we lived back in California, a doctor gave me some samples to help combat back pain. After reading all the small print I decided against taking the pills, and now I'm rather glad I didn't.