DCJ, it sounds like your house's previous owner and ours were separated at birth. Amazing.

The houses on my street were build in the mid '60s, when, as unlikely as it seems now, this area was relatively rural. In the '70s, the country ran a sewer line to the area and most people connected to the sewer.

At some point in my home's history, it was the victim of a Handyman. The Handyman is an evil creature who thinks he can save money by doing things himself, even though he has no training or aptitude. The Handyman converted the carport and separate laundry area off the carport into a den with a half bath. The now enclosed laundry area is full of odd gaps and lacks insulation. The overhead light is run off an orange outdoor cord run across the ceiling. The half bath has exposed pipes and had several other unfortunate deficits that I've tried to do something about in the last 20 years, hoping that I was not just adding to the Handyman curse.

A few years after I bought my house in '88, I looked out at my back yard and there were bubbles. Bubbles were coming out of the ground and floating away. After discounting the existence of fairies, I called a plumber. It turns out that when the house was connected to the sewer, they left the washer connected to the septic tank, which had in the intervening years reached its bubble capacity. To tie the washer to the sewer, that plumber ran the pipe outside and then made a hole in the brick to run it under the house to the sewer. That hole became one of the passageways for the @#$%^& rats that plagued me for years.

I don't want a seance to connect me with my deceased loved ones; I want a seance to connect me with the previous owners of my houses, so I can ask "Why?"

How are you doing without your girls?

It's actually nice to be alone for a day and a half after spending six days traveling through the South with Emmett seeing family and friends. All of that was stellar good fun and I got to see Ginger, flea (and family) and Amych (and hubbie), but it was a trip short on alone time.

But I pick Emmett up from baseball practice at noon (getting geared up for their all-star run) and we'll probably have an indolent afternoon at the Metreon watching Year One and slounging around in the automatic massage chairs.

And then the girls come home tomorrow and suddenly it's summer with its very different summery rhythms. Huh. I just realized that summer for parents is very different than summer for the not parents.

Ginger's story is way more fun now that I've actually been in her house and can imagine the bubbles floating up out of the ground.

We have Em's last t-ball game tonight. And the our schedule changes again, too. Now I see why my parent's scoffed at me whenever I said I loved summer cause it was three months of doing nothing.

So, as if money wasn't tight enough this month, I have just discovered that some Internet company has ripped me off for almost $100 over three transactions, and caused two other checks to bounce, adding another $50 in insufficient funds charges.

DH loves the magical pony story.

Sean can your bank flag transactions as suspicious? That sucks.

3m going to feel vrery fashionable taking my tamaflu. still on phone

just got the call-not flu

I was going to go out and run some errands today but I checked the local paper's website to see what the current temperature is --102. Tomorrow it's supposed to get to 101.

I want a seance to connect me with the previous owners of my houses, so I can ask "Why?"

They were trying to make the demented weasels feel better about themselves.

Sean, that just sucks. I'm sorry.

beth, I hope you get to feeling better soon.

askye, that's pretty toasty. And so much fun with the notorious Florida humidity.