The light rains began last night. Off and on, they signal the approach of a cold front from the north and west, which will end this awful week-long spate of high temperatures and stifling humidity. I've been having dreams about rice paddies and bamboo thickets. That happens in humidity.

I can't keep windows open at night for the cats. It may rain in and ruin the floors, so the cats lie in front of the big floor fans, going full blast all the time.

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Saturday I took two framed acrylic paintings over to the Seneca County Fairgrounds. The fair begins Monday. They are hanging in the Fine Arts Exhibition Hall.

Today I have to take over some canned sauces. One is my 2007 Hungarian Chili Sauce. It can turn the roof of your mouth into cellophane. The other is my last quart of Putanesca Pasta Sauce. Maybe they will open and taste them. Maybe not.

I considered making a strawberry rhubarb pie for the baking competition, but I remembered they auction off the baked goods and I don't want to lose a darned good pie plate.

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The final three days of last week's trading saw crude oil take a dip. Wednesday was the first drop. News of unanticipated high stocks of gasoline and diesel in the US cause that. The Brent crude dropped about ten bucks a barrel. Of course, the stock market responded and went up. It usually does when oil drops.

Then on Thursday the panic ensued. The hedge funds which constitute the "speculators" we hear about, sold off gobs of their oil commodity holdings, fearing huge losses. That drove the prices down even more.

I love to see hedge funds take it in the crotch.

Friday brought calm. The final price of crude was off a tiny percentage. Then the talking heads on the financial TV channels started harping about the future of oil prices. I heard a couple of them predict that the top has been seen, and that oil will now fall gradually to more acceptable levels. One man said that 146 a barrel would be the forever high and would not be touched again.

Don't believe it.

It is just a temporary respite from the climb. Don't run out and buy another big SUV because you believe we are heading back to $1.99 a gallon gas. We'll never see that again.

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Bunjii is a total coward. He is the Lion from the Wizard of Oz. Our little guy, Doobie, terrorizes him. So Bunjii runs away and of course Doobs chases him. Bunjii has places where he can feel safe: under the bathroom sink - inside the cabinet, up on the higher towel shelves, in a closet upstairs, and on my lap. Bunjii is almost twice Doobie's size!

He is healing perfectly. His hair has grown back so fast!

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I will be scouring, dusting, trashing paper piles and cleaning like a demon here. August is my visitors' season. I am expecting my brother around the ninth for a few days. He is going to attend a high school reunion in Sandusky. Then in the remainder of August I will get my sister from CA, her son from WA, my sister's middle kid, Debbi, also from CA and her son Josh.

I have a queen size air mattress with an electric pump, a single guest bed and my own queen size. I will probably have to go find another air bag for me because I will have to bunk down here on the ground floor with the felines.