Arbor Day in Howdygramland.

We’re in the midst of our back yard remodeling project as I write this post. A father and son team just finished building a flagstone ring around our Texas redbud tree. Tomorrow another group will be here to erect our red cedar arbor, on Thursday a concrete crew will pour our expanded patio, and as soon as it “cures” — maybe over the weekend — the concrete will be stamped and dyed. Sam and I are so excited we can hardly stand it. However, we seriously don’t understand how these people can work outdoors in such OPPRESSIVE HEAT. The tree ring dudes didn’t even bring bottled water or a cooler! Here’s our 10-day forecast for your possible interest. As always, there is no chance of rain whatsoever.

There’s been a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in Washington, D.C. this afternoon. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an earthquake in Washington before! Apparently the White House and Capitol were evacuated just in case a few George Washington portraits went flying off the walls. Holy crapola, do you think anybody issued a tsunami warning for the Potomac River? It might be worth a peek on CNN.

The latest news about Hurricane Irene just keeps getting worse and worse. Now she’s scheduled to make landfall in North Carolina as a category 4 storm and then head straight up the east coast. This means Texas is so far out of the equation that we won’t see one stinking drop of rain or half a cloud. I’d write a complaint letter if I could figure out where the hell to send it.

I’ve got a minor Club Meds update. Dr. M did NOT switch me to insulin this morning, which is definitely good news. She wants me to to stick with the double dose of Byetta for the time being and replaced my Glyburide pills with Glimepiride. I’ll be headed to Wal-Mart shortly to drop off my prescription and do a little shopping in-store if I feel motivated — which isn’t very likely because it’s 105° outside and a person would have to be desperate and/or insane to park in the sun on purpose for more than two or three minutes.

Thank you for reading this.