This cactus flower looks like a clown nose.

The walking around in the Bay Area was about 4 more miles, so that would be a total of 5.1 for the day. I paid for this last night. My bunion hurt enough to wake me. I didn't want to go for the aspirin, so I read for a while, but wasn't going back to sleep, so I went out in the moonlight to look for meteors. Yes indeed, in a mere 5 minutes or so I saw two, including one beauty. Sailor stayed in the house, looking out at me, obviously convinced I had lost my mind. I suggested he come out, and he did for a quick run around the yard, but then it was back to his nice safe house.

Rich had a couple of errands to run on base. Meanwhile, I was waiting for him to get back so we could go to the party celebratingTom Sullivan's tenth anniversary on the air. Tom started when Rush left for the big time, and the radio station had one hour of dead time. Initially he had a financial talk show, but Tom is interested in everything, and soon it expanded.

Meanwhile, in the afternoon there was this woman (oh, I remember her name, but she's lawsuit-happy) who had been a tv anchor in Kansas City and wrote a book (and sued the station) when she was fired. "Too Old, Too Ugly, and Not Deferential to Men." She'd been picked up by a local TV station, then let go. (Sued them.) Her afternoon talk show was abrasive and annoying, and I would change stations when she came on. I guess I wasn't the only one, as she got moved to evenings, then nights. Wherever, ratings went down, then went up again when someone else had the slot. Never mind that, she sued the station when she was let go. It's always someone else's fault, not one's own abrasive personality. The final straw was how rude she was to one guest, though she was rude to any who didn't agree with her. Last I heard, she had her law degree and had passed the bar, and was doing the occasional piece for the local alternative paper and for a Bay Area radio station.

Tom moved into the two-hour afternoon slot and started limiting his financial shows to Friday. He was so successful, the show was expanded to three hours. I love listening to him. He's always polite to his callers, even when they're foam-at-the-mouth loonies. (I think his screener does a good job.)

When Rich got back, we raced out to the car, so I forgot to take the glassware and stuffed animals I'd collected for the parish festival. Maybe I really don't want to give the cute stuffed toys away, but I seem to have no use for them myself. I also didn't set up the VCR right and missed General Hospital. Oh, well, it's not one of the "must-see" episodes, the ones I usually mess up on.

We made it to the shopping center just in time for the last two pieces of cake. There were misters and umbrellas, so while the temperature was over 100 degrees, the place was comfortable. We hung about listening to the show and watching it for about an hour, then went home. The rest of the day was hang-around-the-house time.

Rich has discovered that California will penalize us if we don't pay the taxes quarterly. He's going to have to arrange an allotment on his check. And yet, it's 6 weeks without a budget, again. Pity "they" don't have to follow their own rules.

And ya gotta love sportscasters. One was talking about McGuire "unbreaking the tie" with Sosa.