Good Tuesday to you all.  We got up to 88F yesterday but after the heat of the last two weeks that is positively balmy.  I thought about putting on the air and closing up but I really didn't want to.  As I have said we really prefer to have doors and windows open for any breeze to come through.  But I expect that over the weekend into next week we will have to resort to the air conditioning--the 90s are supposed to come back.

Glad you stopped by, Elaine.  Hope the temperatures in your area abate.  We have had a very strange couple of years weather wise.  We are going up to our year round farm market because the peaches are in--three weeks early and in short supply thanks to the March heat and April freeze.  My green thumbs are developing and not consistent.  I almost killed my roses because I put the pot in the wrong place.  I am happy to report they seem to have forgiven me and decided to live.  The foliage is coming back nicely and they have some buds.  I am watching a couple of butternut squash, several vine peaches, and a few cucumbers that will soon be ripe.  My mouth is watering.

The teaser headline for this Huffington Post linked story was 'The Long Con.'  An absolutely perfect description.  The story says big banks have been manipulating a key inter-bank interest rate for more fifteen years.  The banks were greedy and the regulators didn't care.  But the question I have is--how many more 'long cons' are out there?  Our system of insurance?  Our 'health care' system?  Our mis-education system?

We are watching a news item that absolutely amazes us.  Evidently people are so desperate for Excedrin they are willing to pay huge amounts on e-bay and on-line for a supply.  We used Excedrin until it was pulled off the market but switched to the store brand that had the same compounds in the same quantities and it has worked well for us.  We are astounded that people would pay the prices cited and that they would trust on-line venders.

Well, we're back after a very busy morning.  We went to Porter Hospital's Senior Circle breakfast.  We joined that over the last month and this was the first breakfast for us.  Very nice.  And they had a good talk on drug interactions.  They hit most things to think about when getting a new prescription.  Thankfully, I don't have any--crossed fingers and knocking on wood.  Mom does however so we are rather conscious of potential side effects and interactions.  Each monthly breakfast will have a similar presentation.  Then we swung by the city farm market where we picked up tomatoes and a couple of eggplants.  After that we went up to the year round market for the peaches I mentioned yesterday, I think.  Followed by our regular grocery trip and a visit to our favorite meat market.  There we splurged.  With the drought and its effects on corn and soy we figure that the prices on most meats will be going up.  Might as well stock up now.  We already had a good list of things we had recently run out of.  We are both catching our breaths.  Unfortunately, we had to put the air on because the temps are already around 88F which means we might hit 90 two days ahead of predictions.

Talking about things to think about, check out this little piece on The Rural Blog.  Most of the news stories covered the power failures in towns and cities but rural power failures takes the problems into a whole new dimension.  But our so-wise legislators in Washington evidently don't think rural energy programs are a investment of Federal money.

Isn't it wonderful that we have the 'best health care system in the world.'  (SARCAM ALERT)

No one should be surprised by this.  Twenty years ago I saw a news story which discussed the prevalent notion among college students that various forms of cheating was acceptable if by those means the student got the desired grade.  A similar story ran on 60 Minutes 10 or 12 years ago.  Where do you think those students are now?  How about in our banks and financial institutions.