we are both back to life (sort of) after being hit with some kind of summer cold/flu thing. brian was struck down on wednesday, so i stayed home from work to take care of The Button. then i started to feel sick right when brian was starting to perk up (wed afternoon). so i stayed home on thursday. but i'm back at work today-still a little under the weather, but the fever is gone and work is piling up, so i gotta do something. so far, it doesn't appear that The Button has come down with it.

lots on tap for the weekend-live music tonight on the norwich town green, neighbor's lobster bake tomorrow and possible dinner at mike and laurie's (a rare social double booking), and rain permitting, a bike and bbq in taftsville at dan and dj's on sunday. don't know how this will all some off as brian is going to be helping steve paint his house this weekend, i'm recovering from illness, and thunderstorms are predicted for sat and/or sun (depending on which weather service you pray to).

by the way-we had a DOOSY of a thunderstorm last week. it happened tuesday afternoon, it started (as they usually do) with a few thunderclaps in the distance, then pouring rain for, say, 10 minutes, then a calm, then more pouring rain for 10 minutes more. all the while, thunder and lightning intermittantly happening, and loss of power for a minute somewhere in the middle. in the latter half of the storm, the wind was blowing like crazy, and i thought a couple branches from one of our trees whould blow off. luckily, it didn't happen. so we happily pile into cars to go off to mike and laurie's for dinner, and in the first half mile out, you can't even tell that you are on a paved road because there is so much debris on it. not to mention the 6 or 8 trees that had blown across the road-and much more in the forest/wilderness on either side fo the road. after we passed through the half mile of destruction-everything was just peavhy-clean road, blue sky, etc. it was a little freaky.

birthday queens this this weekend: amber, and one of the best people in the whole wide world, my mom.