Well, that was a little bit of a kick in the teeth. I finally contacted the university about scoring essays, a part-time temporary job that is paid by the piece. I did it a few times a couple years ago and it's pretty brutal. Imagine my shock when they said my accuracy was not good enough and they do not want me back! My big accomplishment for yesterday was making that contact; it never occurred to me they wouldn't have me, only how much I didn't want to do it.

Secondly, my Dad is having a rough time of it. For example, he had to go to the eye doctor. He called to tell them to cancel my Mom's appointment (since she died). When he got there, one of the things the doctor asked him was if he had been under any stress lately. "Yes," he said. "My wife just died. I thought you knew that." Well, in this case, the person in the office didn't pass that along to the doctor, I guess. He came and spent a few hours with me, mostly dozing in front of the tennis. My Mom loved to watch tennis. He was telling me things about it and in my usual way, I was not very interested. He came to the Kenney Ridge potluck with me, but I warned him they wouldn't have much that he would like. "You mean, there won't be any meat?" he said. "Probably not," I said. He ate a little tuna fish I got him before we went. We played a few rounds of Boggle with Sky and Gere and Basil.

Ray was at work and then at the Democratic Executive Committee meeting and went to dinner with the geology speaker. The paper says we have the hottest summer on record, with 82 the average temperature and only 6 inches of rain, the 8th driest since record-keeping began. I think we have had 0 rain since just after my mother died. Many people are giving up on their gardens, but we still have herbs and peppers, and maybe we will have some things in the fall.