I am upgrading the weblog software, and things are busted. Maybe I should have recapped the past few days first. The new version is alright, but annoyingly slow. But, it is free, so I am not really complaining.

The chickadees have finally found the feeder. One is hopping all over the tree outside calling for his/her friends. chick-a-dee-dee-dee. fee-bee fee-bee fee-bee. Piglet is probably happy about this development. There is a lot of happy chirping going on outside.

Amanda’s family was here over the past week; she and her mom were participating in the 2007 Danskin Triathlon. I did put up an album in the gallery. Susan left on the redeye last night, and her parents left very early this morning.

12 AUG 2007 : SUNDAY
I spent a while refinishing our kitchen counters. For some reason, the surface became very sticky and tacky; perhaps the linseed/other oil based treatment didn’t cure right or something else bad happened. Actually, I had been spending the past few days trying to get the sticky and gummy crap off. It resists my power sander, and I did not wish to use a more caustic stripper.
Mandy came over to see if Amanda wanted to go to Trader Joe’s. She originally was too sleepy as she had been on call the previous night, but as I was talking with Mandy she eventually came downstairs and agreed to go.
Later than day, we went to Christy’s house for her birthday party (30th). Her birthday is actually the 13th, but who has birthday parties on weekdays anymore. I did not get to see Fritz (her cat) as he was making himself scarce due to the large amount of people.
The party was fun. There was a scavenger hunt. Amanda’s team won, and she was predictably gleeful about that. Christy was on my team; shouldn’t the bday girl’s team automatically win?
13 AUG 2007 : MONDAY
I finally finished refinishing the counter tops. I still have to rechaulk the joints, but that may wait. We had dinner at El Sombrero because the kitchen and living room is a mess, and the wood counters need time to dry out. Linseed oil is rather flammable after all, and perhaps using the stove or oven would be a bad idea.
It looks like some blight is killing our cucumbers. Alas. I planted a new row of spinach recently, and it is doing much better. Perhaps it was too hot for the previous planting; however, I did find evidence of digging and spinach sprout consumption. We had space in the garden, but I could not decide what to put in, so I just put in another row of lettuce. Actually, that was yesterday.