Ethel had me bringing in groceries yesterday, and the thin Wal-Mart bag busted and the peanut butter fell out. It being plastic, we didn't get shattered peanut-butter glass all over the floor - however, it being thin plastic, the lid broke, and a piece flew away.

                                                             

There it is, repaired with duct tape, with a little piece of aluminum foil over the hole in the top to keep the duct-tape glue out of the peanut butter ("hey - you got your tape glue in my peanut butter!") - good as new.

It's been that kind of week - a duct-tape week - here at the Chocolate House. Our pool leveler - the gizmo gadget, sensor, valve and solenoid that keeps the water at the negative edge at just the right level - has been on the fritz. The level float in the bottom pan of the Mexican fountain out front broke off. Silas' air conditioner in his car went out (you don't want to know how much that's gonna cost, and I don't want to type the four-letter words that would be necessary for me to properly tell you).

Once, briefly, the sound went out on the television - that's the TV sound, not the Roku sound or the DVD-player sound - which isn't a bad thing from my perspective, but it keeps Ethel from hearing those vastly entertaining shows about people buying $1000/sf condos in Hong Kong.

(editor's note - for some reason, my spell checker complains about Hong, but it doesn't seem to mind Kong a bit)

I'm ready for the week-end - of course, when I say that, I have to be conscious of the fact that tomorrow morning I have about 13 miles scheduled with Patrick the Tree-Top Ectomorph, and we're supposed to be doing hill repeats. The downtown temp yesterday was 113 - it probably won't get over 112 today, so tomorrow morning in Anthem shouldn't be too bad (unless it's overcast tonight, as that tends to keep heat in - oh, look. Clouds!)

I've got that run with Patrick, and I'm chairing a 5:30 meeting tomorrow night, and that is All. That. I. Have. Scheduled. For. The. Weekend.  Of course, something else will come up. Something always does.

Hopefully, I'll be able to fix it with duct tape.