Early this morning, before it got too hot, I headed over to Alex's and now his truck is wearing all four of its tire covers.  On my way back into the yard I noticed something on the back porch... turned out to be a dead rodent.  

Maybe one of those nasty roof rats?  The good news is that even though it was right outside the dog door, Brownie didn't seem to have messed with it.

I called Mom this morning (waited until 10 her time) though once again my timing was bad and she didn't have time to talk.  Looks like we'll play phone tag today.  Told her I wasn't sure if I'd be home when she tries to return my call when she gets home from brunch since Tom and I originally planned to go see "Yesterday" at the movies.  I started rethinking that after he had a terrible (and noisy) case of the hiccups this morning.  

He's blaming it on the prednisone.  Yes, he woke with another bout of gout on Friday (after not having any issues on his Oregon/Idaho trip, and having just had a follow-up the "gout-ologist the day before to report that!)

We've decided to wait until tomorrow to see Yesterday, 

thinking the theater is likely to be more crowded today.

I made a short trip over to the bank to deposit a check, and tried out one of Tom's tie-downs to "attach" Brownie's dog bed to the front seat.  It wasn't ideal (a wider strap should work better) but it did help keep Brownie from sliding off the seat during turns.  

He certainly loves going for rides in the car, so much so  

that when we get home he doesn't want to get out of the car.  

It's a little frustrating standing in the hot garage (111 predicted for today), trying to coax him out of the car.  I can't leave him in there without me (would hate for him to find some leftover rat poison in some nook or cranny!) and also can't leave the garage door open because don't want Pokey to wander in there.