Nadine assured me this morning that I needn’t knock myself out cleaning for them because she wasn’t going to look at corners and wipe her fingers on furniture. I explained that if I didn’t use guests as a catalyst to clean, my house would be a pigsty. She understood.

I went to Publix and picked up a cooked turkey that only needs reheating but that will take some hours to heat properly so Ed, who takes control (you’ve heard of CONTROL?) will get up early and deal with the turkey heating. I am so not into fighting for authority over food. Better, if he wants to take over dinner chores, he has my blessing. Better yet, if he wants to take me out to dinner every night, that would work.

I also bought Portuguese sausage for the stuffing.

And it has been raining all day, an unusual condition for this time of year, moving out of hurricane season and into dry weather. So I didn’t do my morning walk and exercise routine at the pier and I didn’t bike later in the afternoon. In a way it was a relief because I often have decision angst as to whether to do the walk, come back tired, and not do stuff I really need to do for the event (if there is an event). So although I saw it as a blessing, I also saw it as the gods being jealous of my toned and lithe condition and sending weather to interfere. (Yes, they do that.)

The cats are still not using the cat panel. I have given up on them and I pin it up with a large paper clamp attached to a string, attached to the handle of the door. In and out they go and, even so, they approach the opening with deep suspicion. Occasionally I will bring a cat up to the panel, take its paws and push them against the panel – see? -- it’s a piece a cake – but unless I raise it way up, they will not, will not, go through. Do not recruit these cats for anything serious.

And there is a chocolate lab next door, named Pebble Beach, who I call Pebbles, who hovers outside the pool cage – just a happy-go-lucky dog who wants to play but our furries don’t get it and cower in the ferns and won’t move when Pebbles is out there.

When Pebbles was a pup (large, though) she used to rush at me and often knock me down. I know it was love and playfulness but I’m glad she’s calmer now. Getting the paper from the driveway doesn’t feel like a reconnaissance mission any more.

Ed bought the entire Sharp (Sean Bean) series of British soldiers fighting in the Napoleonic wars. It’s a good series and he got discount discs from BJ’s and he is watching one now, happy as a pig in @#$%.

xx, Teal