Charmion, 23 years ago I found the house I'm living in on the Internet. At the time I was using Realtor.com, since then Zillow is a big deal (and forcing some changes in the US market, at least, with insisting that if Realtors have "pocket" listings they can't go up on Zillow later. It's start out online or never online.) And I'm told that Redfin has the fastest refresh rate for listings during the day. My son and his partner found their house through them a couple of years ago. At any rate, this adds up to "let your fingers do the walking," repurposing the old Yellow Pages motto.

Lovely gentle rain here in North Texas this morning, but yesterday it was a hellish floodscape in the Texas Hill Country south of here. I've driven through that area several times, the Guadalupe River is incredibly beautiful, but the land contours are gentle enough that the water can rush far and wide quickly. The river rose 26' in 45 minutes. Those kids in the summer camp didn't have a chance.

With the rain here the soil in the back will be moist enough to finish that work on the French drain today and tomorrow. My gardening guru discussed just such a project on his radio show last week, reminding me that even my original low-tech plan of just gravel, not using a perforated tube, was fine. I'll stay with that original plan.

This cat-sitting gig is over Monday evening, but it has gotten me back into going to the gym so I'll keep that up. I'm listening to the audio book of Wicked to see what all of the fuss has been about. The book was written over 20 years ago, and it's ironic that there is apparently a disruptive feature called Ticktock (not sure how the book writes or spells it since I'm listening).

Dorothy, how was the week with double holidays? Do you observe either of them (two occasions for picnics!) Was the Fourth quiet for everyone else? For the rest of the world it was just Friday, here it felt like having a two Saturday weekend.