I read in today's New York Times that the Dallas-Fort Worth area has wide-spread flooding after a prolonged torrential rainstorm. I'm glad to know that SRS is maintaining her position clear of the water table.

Bathing suits! I badly need one at least a size smaller than what I currently wear to pool class, but this is a terrible time of year to shop for a bathing suit in Ontario -- sizes are limited to teeny-weeny and very enormous, and everything left on the racks is black with fuchsia patches (or worse).

I have two large bags of winter clothes ready to go to Goodwill in October, when I imagine they will actually be wanted, and a large laundry-basketful in the box room waiting to be packed up. The winnowing of the closets has produced a considerable over-supply of hangers for coats and suits (the curved wooden or plastic kind), and I hope Goodwill is interested in those, too. The clothes rails in the box room now have significant bare patches, the study closet is organized so I can see everything stowed in there, and the guest room closet and chest of drawers are empty. Only one plastic bin of variegated junk remains in the basement.

Summer is already hurtling to an end here in Stratford. The two Red Haven peach trees in my friend Alden's garden are producing abundantly, and yesterday she gave me a dozen perfectly ripe peaches that, unlike the fruit sold at the supermarket, have never been refrigerated. What flavour! Absolute bliss! I have already eaten six, and will probably eat the rest before lunchtime tomorrow.

Cat hair is gathering in the corners again, so I really must break out the vacuum cleaner and the mop. I have ten days to get the place squared away before Elder Brother & Wife land on my doorstep. EB likes cats, Wife tolerates them, and they're both too polite to criticize my housekeeping, but my residual bourgeois pride requires me to scrub the kitchen floor and de-fur the niche behind the toilet before they get here.

The dryer has apparently decided that generating heat is no fun anymore, so a technician is coming on Thursday to set it right (I hope). I just sent another large lump of money to Niece No. 1 for her son's college fees, and my bank account is consequently a bit on the slender side if I'm looking at another major appliance failure. Fortunately, next Monday is pensioners' payday.