Summer moving fast

It seems funny to say anything is moving fast in the heat of summer, other than the coronavirus, but it's July 19th! We've got slightly less than two weeks of July left and then comes August. Of course, school starts late this year, not until August 20th, if they stick to the planned schedule. But who knows what's going to happen. We'll find out this week whether or not we get any in-person instruction this fall. I've decided I don't really have a dog in this fight. Whatever they do, I can live with it.

Rocket Boy is planning to come back and visit us for another week in August, but I don't know just when that will happen. He's in the process of buying a car, a 12-year-old Toyota Highlander hybrid, looks something like this photo (I think this is the right color). Even though it's old, it's in good condition and should last many more years. He likes big cars and he wanted a hybrid, so it seems like a good choice.

Once he has it, he will have two cars, which will be a problem because there's almost no parking available on his street. So he's planning to drive his 25-year-old Montero back to Colorado, spend a week with us, and then fly back to St. Louis, leaving the Montero parked on the driveway. Sigh. Once he moves back to Colorado permanently, assuming the Toyota is still functional then, he promised me we can get rid of the Montero, since the Toyota will also be good at hauling things. I am not going to hold my breath on that one.

Another upcoming purchase: new gutters for our house, which mostly doesn't have gutters, and those that it does have are either packed with gunk or too small. We should have done this years ago, but OK, we didn't. Better now than never. It's not proving to be easy to arrange, though. We have gotten one quote so far: for almost $3000. That sounds like a lot of money for one small house, though it is from a very reputable company. Neighbors have made recommendations for other companies. We're checking them out. It's all very unpleasant, even though Rocket Boy is doing most of the phoning. I had to walk around the house with the guy doing the quote and I did not enjoy it. I am not a gutter expert.

Here's a more fun topic: yesterday was Chester's 8th birthday! We celebrated in grand style. I had gotten a "creamsicle" flavored cake at the grocery store, not good at all, but of course cats don't usually like cake anyway. Pie Bear probably would have eaten it, but he had more of a sweet tooth. Chester would have perhaps preferred a meatloaf cake, with a rich gravy icing. Chester came to sit in my chair while I got things ready, but when I struck a match to light the candles, he was gone in a flash. So the twins and I sang happy birthday to an absent cat and blew out the candles for him (he came back later when I opened the cat treat container).

I put a little bit of cake in his dish, plus 10 cat treats (it was supposed to be 8, but two more fell in). He happily ate all the treats and left the cake, though this morning I saw that the cake had been disturbed. Maybe a moth or a spider tried it. We didn't have any presents for him, but we did give him some catnip later in the day. And of course he had his regular three meals, fresh water, and LOTS of hugs and kisses, far more than he in fact wanted. Everyone loves Mr. Fluffy.

And that's my news for the week, though I will note that we are now at 140,000 coronavirus-related deaths in this country, up another 5000 from last week, even though I am blogging a day earlier. So I can assume that we will hit 145,000 by next week, and 150,000 by the end of July. Huh. It's really scary. Colorado is still doing well, but that could certainly change. Which reminds me, I need to make the kids more masks.