61 bar steady 30.14 0mph N dew-point 57 sunrise 6:16 sunset 8:19
Full Corn Moon moonrise 2014 moonset 0554
Whoa. Did you see the 7th gold medal race for Phelps? His long, long arms came out of an arcing stroke, reached for the touch pad and, by .01 of a second, arrived ahead of the silver medalist. To the naked eye it looked like Phelps did not make it. A later interview with Mark Spitz, also winner of 7 gold medals, showed Phelps a humble and more realistic viewer of his own accomplishments than others. Others wanted to make him the greatest Olympian; he said he was happy to be among the ones considered great, like Jesse Owens. All this and modesty, too? A great American to represent us in a country which understands the value of modesty.
With the Woollies here on Monday Kate and I have begun to get into preparation mode. We don’t entertain often, hardly at all, but fortunately she’s an experienced suburbanite. She can throw a party. Best of all, she’s doing it on her birthday. I’m lucky and the Woolly palate will be lucky.
The garden will get a spruce up. I’ll dead-head all the day lilies and pull the obvious weeds if there are any. The weeds growing up between the patio bricks will come out, too. They could have come out a while ago, but we’ve had other matters. The fire-pit can hold a fire, though its not pretty, nor finished, but the pit itself exists. A bit of shuffling papers upstairs, some art to the living room, turning furniture in a group friendly circle and we’ll be ready. I’m looking forward to having the guys over and discussing what it means to be an America.
Kobe Bryant tonight on TV said he was proud to have USA on his team jersey. We’re the best, he said. Not sure what that means, but that’s the question for Monday.
Apropos of none of the above is a story from the last Sierra Club political committee meeting. We decided the three Minnesota house races we would target and a male committee member looked at the list after we’d congratulated ourselves on sorting out a complicated task, “Yeah, except we picked all the guys.” There had been six races, three with men and three with women.
As his comment settled on the group, Katarina, the Sierra Club intern from Lentz, Germany looked up, smiled, and said, “That’s all right. Men always need help anyway.” Ooofff.
