I must have been out of my mind going over to Joan’s house for coffee. When the inevitable “I want to show you something, honey” moment came, she went out into the hall and opened up her hall closet. Instantly there came a horrible sound of OBJECTS flying everywhere. I heard Joan cluck her tongue a second and mutter, “Now where did I put…..?” Oh Lord, here we go again, I thought, cursing myself for even agreeing to join her. I sat in Joan’s kitchen waiting as patiently as possible. I finished the first cup of coffee. Finally she came back with her son’s report card, all A’s. I didn’t even ask her what the report card was doing, of all places, in her closet! But I did dare myself to suggest to her that she buy a set of closet organizers—the ones I’d been using for years really worked wonders for me. I gave her what I was pretty sure was the brand name and she absently wrote it down on the first loose piece of paper she could find. She asked me if I wanted another cup of coffee, and I sighed and consented. One thing Joan Johnson is pretty good at is making coffee for her guests.

We were turned onto DSC Security by Tom, who has used them for his home and business. I went first to their web site and then to a couple of their reseller. They have a lot of equipment that we can use, both for work and for home. I am under pressure at work to get a system in place for the plant. I had the police out the other day and we went over the various strong and weak points as they saw it. Then I had them meet with the plant operations people, who knew much more about the building and and property than I did. It turns out that the plant has a number of access points that I never knew about. This plant had originally been built prior to World War II, and was used first in steel manufacturing. For some reason — and nobody knows why for sure — there are a number of underground access points. Maybe at one time there were connecting offices or other plants. We didn't know. But there were underground tunnels that had access points away from the main operation. This changed the entire picture. We had no reason to be concerned in the past, but with the sensitive things we were under contract to make, we had to be more careful.

I noticed the erratic behavior before I started noticing the thinning hair and bald spots. I thought that baldness was a problem that only humans suffered from, but my veterinarian told me that pet hair loss is actually quite common. Any different number of things can cause hair loss in animals, so I had to take her in to find out exactly what was causing my cat’s hair to fall out. The poor thing had to go through X-Rays, an MRI and the needles to draw blood for testing, all to find out that the hair loss was being caused by stress. The Vet told me that any time you introduce a new party into an environment that it can have a negative effect on the pets involved. My wife and I had a baby about two months ago and that’s just about when all the erratic behavior began. The Vet told us that there were many things that we could try to help the situation, but that it was likely that we would have to put the cat on behavior medication to help ease the stress. We’re going to try one cycle of the medication, and if it works she’ll probably have to be on it for the rest of her life.

Does a personal injury attorney in Toronto have a the exact same job as one that works out of New York City? Maybe a personal injury attorney in Toronto is a bad example. Though an NBA player is a worse one. What I really want to know is since Canada is a different country with its own set of laws and judicial system do jobs like attorneys and accountants and such differ that much there from what we do here in the United States of America? I know that they’re probably basically the same since they want the same ends. Solve the case, help the client, get a good tax refund, whatever. But getting there must be a different road than we would use here in America. Culturally, Canada and America are very much alike. Some people would say that Canada bases their whole culture on America or that they even share the same one, it’s just that Americans set the trends. The longest unguarded border in the world divides America and Canada and the two countries have always gotten along well enough. Still, how are they different? In the specifics, I mean. I don’t have any Canadian friends who can help me with this. Where do I look it all up at?

There used to be only one way to see how you were doing with any physical thing, and that was to go to the doctor and have your tests. Now you can walk into any drug store and get cheap monitor strips, which can tell you in seconds or minutes what problem you may have, if any. I've used them myself to test for any number of things, and so has Tara. Tara's uncle, in fact, used one of those kits, and it was a good thing that he did. He probably saved his life. He made a doctor's appointment after one of the home tests and found that he really needed to get some help, and fast. The operation went well, and he is on the mend, but if he hadn't walked into the drug store that afternoon, who knows? Tara and I visited him about three weeks ago in Maine. Though it's cold there and he couldn't get out, he was feeling much better. We will probably go back in about three months. He should be well along by then. Not to mention that the weather will be warmer. Then maybe we can all take a drive and see a few things.

Barb looked a little preoccupied. I had run into her at the grocery store yesterday when I ran out to get some last-minute milk, coffee, and Kleenex. “How’s everything going?” I ventured. “Good, Jan, how are you doing?” She looked like she was in a hurry, so I started pushing my basket ahead, waving back at her. We see one another a lot on the block, so it didn’t seem a good time to continue the conversation. But she called after me. “Jan? Did I tell you my husband is going to have lasik eye surgery?” They found cataracts in Jan’s husband’s right eye. That’s going to be so expensive, I said to Glenn when I got home. He nodded his head and went back to his precious sports section. I thought about this for a while later as I lay in bed trying to get to sleep. One of my fourth-grade students had to get this same operation when she developed a cataract, and it never quite was the same for her. Now she’s in eighth grade and she automatically has a social stigma on her, because she has this cross-eyed kind of look. Of course, now that she’s in the junior high, I rarely ever see her—my school is across town—but you hear these things through the Bentley School Grapevine as it were. Before sleep overtook me, I said a quiet prayer for Jan’s husband, that his eye operation would be successful.