I drove north to Flagstaff but after I turned onto I-17, the little yellow wrench light lit up on my car. I puzzled over what to do, should I ignore it and continue on? But within a minute the car started slowing down and soon I was on the shoulder plodding along at five miles an hour. I pulled off on Thunderbird Road and made it to a residential street, where I stopped and called Evan to tell him the news.

After sitting a while the car started and seemed fine, so I drove it across the street to a Circle K and bought some cooling water (I haven't had a caffeinated pop in two weeks). I called John, and then Alex, who works next to a Ford dealership. I ended up driving the car slowly over there, across town, stopping a few times when the car didn't want to work. We left the car there overnight and I had supper with Alex, it was nice to see him.

This morning he dropped me off at the dealership at 7:30 and I drove out at 1:45. I have an extended warranty, the company states very clearly that you have to call them before you do repairs. Guess what? They don't answer the phone on Saturday. So I will see on Monday what happens with that.

Back home now, weekend basically sucks. It is hot and sweaty in my house and I am pouty.

This week at the Farmer's Market:

- bunch of carrots

- two white onions

- three peaches

- five mild small peppers

- two eggplants

- two orange tomatoes

I am going to make Baba ganoush with the eggplants.

Oh my, the peach I just ate was the best peach I have eaten in years.

I went to Penzeys spice and got some Vietnamese cinnamon.

Snickerdoodles.

I made snickerdoodles from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook. I am taking a dozen of them up to Evan on Friday.

The Pierce Brothers, circa 1895.

My great-great-great grandfather Robert is sitting in the front row at right.

The other men in the picture include James (1821-1907), Henry (1825-1902), John (1826-1907), and probably Melvin (1835-1898).

Evan arrived Friday and we made Indian food for supper. It was a meal to forget. The next morning we got up and made food for the pool volleyball. We made a delicious pineapple mango chutney upside-down cake.

Cake!

And a delicious zuchini tart from the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living.

Zuchini tart.

We drove over and picked up Patrick and Mark and drove up to Richard's delightful house.

Us.

It was Evan's first time playing pool volleyball. There was a big crowd of guys and I think we all had a great time.

The guys.

Patrick had the best time, he is also one of the better players.

Patrick.

This morning we had breakfast and then went over to the Sweetwater wetlands. I was expecting there to be few birds there. Off in the distance we saw a black-necked stilt, something I had never seen there before.

Black-necked stilt.

As we walked along, Evan saw a turtle wandering along.

Turtle!

I picked it up and discovered that turtles go pee as a defensive measure. I was amazed at how much urine came out.

I am not afraid!

The people before us wrote down on the sign-in sheet that they had seen a bobcat and a pair of skunks. In contrast, we saw a pair of cotton rats.

Cotton rat.

A trip to Penzys spice where I bought Mexican vanilla beans and Vietnamese cinnamon. Next weekend I'm going to make vanilla ice cream.

I ran into Steve at the Santa Cruz Farmer's Market. There was a lot more variety in produce this week. Unfortunately, there were a lot more stupid people today. I suppose I was impatient because I was wearing dress shoes and my feet were hurting. This one scatter-brained woman was particularly annoying. Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. Way. Pretty please with sugar on it.

Steve.

Things are going well at work- two more projects for me to work on. One of them is one that I really wanted.

Steve's niece sells produce from this stand.

Evan is coming down tomorrow and we are going to make Indian food. I went to the Indian grocery store the other day and got some samosas and naan.

The guy selling these squashes was happy that I took him empty egg cartons.

Saturday is pool volleyball and we are going to make a pineapple mango chutney upsidedown cake.

This week's purchase.

- dozen eggs

- three zucchinis

- 5 small egglants

- 4 tomatoes

- 4 red peppers

- 4 red onions

- lots of string beans

Basically I'm buying all of my vegetables and eggs at the Farmer's Market now.

I attended the tiny school at Buckley, Michigan from 1974 through 1979, from 4th through 9th grades. The school had about 300 kids, kindergarten through 12 grade. Really, it was an awful school at that time. Any attempts to improve the school failed because local residents thought, "It was good enough for me back in 1948, it is good enough for me now."

I was constantly picked on because I was book-smart, physically weak, and considered a sissy. I remember the time when Steven J. told me he was going to beat me up at lunch time and sure enough he found me and beat the shit out of me. Teachers didn't do anything about this sort of behavior. The hippie math teacher, one of the few teachers I liked, would eventually kill himself because he was a closeted homosexual.

Traverse City is the big town nearby and the City commissioner passed a non-discrimination ordinance in October 2010 that banned employers from firing people because they are gay or lesbian. Of course the local born again homophobes have raised enough signatures to put this on the ballot. One of the ringleaders in this effort is Matt Schoech. His brother John was in my class and we were friends.

For the last 10 years Matt Schoech has been focusing on this issue. Back in 2001, he was successful in preventing a similar ordinance from being enacted. You really have to wonder why a straight man would be so interested in this issue. Marcus Bachmann syndrome?

I looked up the Buckley school and was pleased that it has changed, the school actually boasts of its academic excellence and prohibits bullying.

Buckley Bear, ironic isn't it?.