Rachelle called last evening, and after we commiserated on the latest shitstorm from tRump (and shared our fervent hopes that maybe he's finally pushed enough people over the edge so that he'll be voted out in November!) she gave me some sad news. I learned that Bob has Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  

Apparently he'd been diagnosed a while (18 months?) ago but it had been indolent.  Unfortunately the situation has changed, and it's now spread throughout his system. Bob's just started chemo, which I think Rachelle said will be weekly for first month, then every other week for next 5 months, and after that he'll go on a maintenance schedule.  (I was understandably stunned, and it's possible I didn't process all the information correctly.)

Rachelle and Bob had visited us in Arizona back in November, on a trip celebrating their 5th anniversary, when we had a wonderful time.

Marilyn wrote that she "had some overripe bananas and a 4 1/2 lb bag of chocolate chips that were getting restless, so.....chocolate chip banana bread was born!" and sent me this photo.

 Shev even offered to "overnight a slice", but with our current heat it likely would continue to cook <g> in the mail here - and possibly end up 'too burned' to eat...

One of Tom's birthday gifts arrived in the mail yesterday (Alex approved)  

As I was talking on the phone with Mom last evening (passing along the sad news re Bob) I was wondering how Tom's drive had gone, expecting a phone call to that effect at some point before dark.  During my chat with Mom (when we basically had exhausted all topics of "news") Tom called, and wonder of wonders <gasp> I was actually able to switch over and speak with him.  He'd had an uneventful drive and made it further than he'd hoped before he was stopping for the night.

When I went to turn on the front porch lights last night, neither one worked.  Since just last week Tom had replaced the bulb in the one by the garage (though it took me a number of requests over that week to have that accomplished) that new bulb can't have already burned out.  I have no idea what the issue is, but I would like to be able to have the porch lights on at night so the house doesn't look deserted (and thus especially inviting to burglars) especially while Tom is away.

Last evening I also tried to use the recently arrived and fully charged external battery with my laptop... but guess what?

Around 11:00 Brownie started barking madly.  I was still trying to fall asleep (had kept adding 30 minutes of time to my Audible book, though usually I drift off listening during the first 30 minutes) and when I went to the back door there was Vera.  Alex and Gabby were in the pool, and Vera was at the back door because Alex had closed off the dog door so Vera couldn't come in after her repeated "accidents" on our carpet.  

Yesterday when he popped over he'd brought Vera to visit Brownie - and she left a yellow puddle on the back porch.  None of us can figure out what her issues are here since she reportedly never pees inappropriately any place else. 

This morning there wasn't any internet connection when I got up. I kept checking periodically, and at least that seemed to resolve itself on its own at some point.  Between the external battery, the porch lights, and the internet connection I'm experiencing all sorts of issues with various technology components.  

This morning I did some yardwork while there was some welcome cloud cover, first watering/trimming out front.  We have a whole bunch of volunteer salvia plants coming up, which pleases both me and the hummingbirds.  Of course the original plants were also volunteers, once tiny but now hale and hearty.

Next I picked up the latest crop of grapefruit on the ground out back, easily filling up a 5-gallon bucket.  Of course grapefruit are not as heavy as rocks, but the loaded bucket gets heavy nonetheless.

Today it's not supposed to be quite as warm as yesterday, but tomorrow <gasp> it's only going to be around 95!  So I hope to get substantial yardwork accomplished then since a number of things need some serious trimming.

While I've been harvesting a few peaches each day, they're still not truly ripe or as juicy as they should be - though that hasn't kept the birds from sinking their beaks into quite a number of the un-netted ones.

This afternoon I ventured out to pick up Tom's other birthday gift, when sadly it was proven to me that the idiot drivers are still out in force.  After one particularly close call I wondered what would happen to Brownie, with Tom gone, if I went out to run an errand and didn't return.