With a few good friends and a stick or two, A house is built at a corner called Pooh.

There are a small group of people here who insist on calling Lexie, "Alexa". Darndest thing. And, I never bother to correct, close enough for me. Besides we have so many nick names, and she hardly ever sees many people from work. -- Felix got to run around the court last night. He's been trying to sneak out all day, and we finally let him go out with Chi and Turkey. They kept an eye on him. His leg gets worse each day, as far as tremors and weakness, but no pain. -- I tried my first Lychee today. It was pretty good. Reminds me of some odd, oversized, red grape covered in a spiny rubbery shell you have to peel off. Odd fruit, but I'd take it in a picnic.

Word(s) of the day: BOOMERANG PROPENSITY

Rubber band ball update: Softball size, one rubberband broke somewhere inside and a piece sticks out, looks like a rubberbandapple.

Lexie log: I figured out what kind of puppy Lexie is. I thought she was a Blue Heeler, but now I've changed my mind. She's a Border Collie. She's keen and overactive, runs around, constantly herding the cats, highly intelligent, loyal and loving. -- Yesterday when I got home, Lexie and I walked a mile up to the Seven-Eleven me and Grammy Mom used to walk to when I as a kid. It was the most beautiful walk ever. The weather was absolutely perfect, sunny, not to hot, just warm enough with a cool breeze. We had a great time and chatted. She focused on all the different types and sizes of rock; river rock, gravel, lava rock, boulders. She would both try to walk on and pick up just about any rocks we came across. Any that she was successful in picking up, she threw. To my surprise we found a playground on Imperial street that I don't ever remember. I'm actually thinking we walk there after work today. She wanted to play there yesterday, but I had a goal and we would have never left until she was too tired to go. She is definitely a bare foot child. We were almost there and she kept asking me to take off her shoes. She tried to convince me they hurt her. I'm pretty sure she just prefers to be barefoot. I told her she wouldn't like it, and took them off. She did fine on the sidewalk, but when we ran out of that she couldn't hack it. She didn't want her shoes back on yet though, stubborn as she is. She finally couldn't pick between shoes and blacktop, so I scooped her up and carried her the last teeny bit. By the time we were at the store she was more than willing to let me put her shoes back on. We walked into 7-11 and she freaked out. Full blown freak out tantrum. She'd never been in a small convenience store before. We pulled out of it real fast. I just reassured her that we were fine, and walked over to the milk cooler. The clerk showed her a toy and she relaxed. She picked chocolate milk and I decided to try a black cherry lemonade Slurpee. We paid our $2.98, went outside and sat at the plastic picnic table. I poured her a cup of chocolate milk in the complimentary cup the clerk gave me, put a slurpee lid on it and gave it to her with a straw. We sat for a while and people watched, made really small talk, and when it was time to leave, she didn't want to go. We probably spent about 10 minutes there. We got about half way home and Daddy called. He met us on Johnson St., picked us up and we made our nightly outing of chores. She was asleep in her seat in less than three minutes. -- Her Grand Uncle Ken and Grand Aunt Janice are in town and will be out at Grammy and Grampa Dad's this Sunday. We are going to go out there for a visit.

Today I'm grateful for Frank and Lexie, nice weather, summer activities, family, movies, kitties, Charlie (the fish and the radio station), weekends, and bamboo back scratchers.