Fastest annual physical EVER when your ob/gyn has two c-sections awaiting later in the morning. We're okay, usually we are able to talk longer, but the important questions were asked and answered. That gave me time to weave around town to various businesses and do my shopping before the rush after work or the day before Thanksgiving.

In the last two days I've learned about three different murders in my circle of acquaintances. Senseless, brutal, and heart-breaking. One was a professor I used to see at literature conferences and talk with via email discussion lists. Her husband was also killed. The third, not actually known to me, but closer to home, was the murder of a young man trying to protect his wife, a grocery store clerk at closing time. The robbers included a young woman who was a former employee. Not surprisingly, there were "bad vibes," as I was told by a clerk at the next nearest grocery in the chain. It closed earlier this year. Ironically, or well timed, a local radio interview program spent an hour today talking with Barry Glassner, who revised his 20-year-old book The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. None of these people probably feared what happened to them as the most likely cause of injury or death.

Off that oddball soapbox.

To the dentist for my six-month cleaning, then back to the fence, hopefully to get more done before the mosquitoes come out. Because even now that the days are generally cold, if they warm up, the mosquitoes appear.