Welcome to the week of overheated birthdays. The triple-digits are dug-in here and despite a tease of "rain" that was actually a visual representation of humidity for today, there are good reasons world-wide for not actually lighting that many candles.

As hot as the afternoons still are, the quality of light changes noticeably this time of year and the mornings are cooler and after dusk becomes tolerable. I've started a several-day job of trimming the tall mostly-dead grass around the front yard and piling bulky waste, with a head start in today's trash by stuffing the can with a couple of clunky metal items (trash pickup is only deferred for Thanksgiving and xmas holidays.)

I hope in a couple of weeks to have small plants to transplant into beds and then in October harvest a few squash and cucumbers. I waited too long, but I may still get something. I've enjoyed fresh pickles all summer made from early summer cucumbers.

Sears has sent me a reminder every day that tomorrow they will arrive to fix my dryer. Clearly they're as excited about the prospect as I am! And a reminder myself to pay the home warranty bill. This year I will have recouped about half the cost of it with the dryer repair, better than the usual no-participation from other insurance policies (no claims means another year of pure profit for those companies. Legalized gambling in all of its complexity.)

Jon, if you've finished with your svg charts, what is your next project? Do you have a record of where all of your files and accounts are? Passwords? I keep meaning to tidy my records and discard the documents from old accounts that no longer exist. My daughter knows where all of this is kept, but knowing where and sorting are two huge different things.