things are more calm around here today.  i’m trying to convince chester that he can and should go out the doggie door in the bedroom, because otherwise our house will soon be filled with many, many bugs because of keeping the hot tub room door open to accommodate him.

friday night, we went with mom and dad to the fish fry at the firefighters’ club.

the good thing about the firefighters’ club is that it is approximately one minute from my parents’ house.  if dad could do it, we could walk there.

that was really the only good thing about eating there.

because it seems that everybody in springfield is thronging to every place in town that’s having fish fries in honor of lent, i guess, mostly everybody in springfield was there at the firefighters’ club.

it was very very crowded.  very very loud because of said crowd, plus plenty of the noise was caused by children.  there’s nothing wrong with children, except when there are way too many of them at an otherwise very very loud event.

mom and dad hoped to sit in the bar area, which was actually more deafening than the main room.  the bar was too packed with people, though, so we sat in the huge, very very overlit room.

i had shrimp, which wasn’t bad, but kevin had the worst walleye he’d ever had in his life, he said.  he kept trying to get me to try it, but i refused.

so in the midst of all of this bright loudness husband with a horrible meal, i texted amy about the situation.  she sent me some photos of her animals, to help divert my attention.

here’s her very old but fiesty cat coogat, lying in the drawer.  i think she’s 19, and she’s very spry.

and the beautiful numie, resting in a sunbeam.

amy said he looked like this cause he wanted some of the apple amy was eating.

and she sent this picture yesterday, with the caption “gay or straight?”  i think he’s a metrosexual dog; he does have a tendency to seem gay, but i know he likes the ladies.  he chases mollie all around whenever she comes to visit, anyway.

the CRAZY WARM WEATHER continues all this week.  yesterday we washed and waxed both cars.

i think i’m going to start the day by posting another entry in my ENGLAND 2011 area.  i’m not entirely sure why i’m so anxious to finish it up (i have a long way to go to finish it up), because i looked at the last video i posted several days ago, and only two people had watched it, and one of them was probably me.

yesterday morning as i was sitting in the living room drinking my lapsang souchong, trying to wake up, i kept hearing a woman’s voice in the basement.  as i strained to listen, i realized it had to be amy.  but what was amy doing in the basement, and what was she so intently talking about?  on and on she went, and i was dying to know why she was there, but not dying enough to get up and see.

finally i walked to the front hall, where i could hear from the register.  i realized it wasn’t amy, it was ME.  kevin was obviously in the basement watching one of my england videos.  but how could he watch video #6, because i haven’t even put it on youtube yet?  very puzzling.

finally he emerged to get some coffee, and he said that he was actually watching video #5.  so you know it’s bad if even your very own husband takes forever to watch the videos.

but anyway, video #6 is interesting and different from anything you could ever find on youtube – it’s our first day not in london, and we visit the little town of Rye, which was the home of E.F. Benson, the writer of the “Lucia” series of books, and we also went to Leeds Castle at night, to see an outdoor screening of “Some Like it Hot.”

ok, i must get busy now.

mrs. h.