It was in the 90s again today! We pretty much stayed inside working in the office. Mary continued painting the garden gnomes while I worked on the website. Today, I finished off our March 2026 trip to Hawaii, where we met up with Megan and watched her gymnastics meet.
I got a call from Joe asking about the diameter of the flagpole. We are going to move it from the garden and put it on the concrete patio in the front yard, making it easier to change flags. Joe is very clever, and since he was going to the OC Fair today, we planned to stop by the flagpole booth and get a ground-mounting sleeve. He called, and I went outside and measured the diameter of the bottom tube.
The flagpole is not exactly vertical right now; it leans after we had to do some digging to get to the sewer pipe about two years ago.
I got out my micrometer, and it indicated the pole was exactly 1.4925 inches in diameter!
It is wonderful to have the proper tools when needed.
The rest of the afternoon we spent in the office.
On this hot Saturday evening, the kind where even the squirrels looked tired, Mary and I met up with Donna and Bob for Donna’s birthday dinner at Renata’s Italian Bistro.
We dined on the patio, and there was a nice breeze.
“Are we dressed fancy enough?” Bob asked, wearing his best golf shirt.
“You look like a vacation brochure,” Donna said.
Renata’s was packed, warm, and smelled like garlic, tomatoes, and happiness. I immediately announced, “I’m only having something light,” then ordered today’s special and added garlic bread and “a little salad for health.”
Mary gave me a look. “The salad is decorative at this point.”
Donna was treated like royalty by the waiter, who brought her a birthday candle to make sure she could eat it with a scoop of spumoni ice cream. Unfortunately, the candle began melting sideways in the heat, and Bob tried to blow it out from across the table, accidentally adding candle wax to the side of Mary’s glass of wine.
“Nice aim,” Mary said.
After dinner, Donna opened her presents. Mary selected the presents, all with some relationship to roosters, Donna’s favorite animal!
I was going to give her a mystery box I wrapped myself using Christmas paper and duct tape, but Mary nixed that idea.
Donna dug to the bottom of the gift bag and found a kitchen gadget nobody could identify.
“What is it?” she asked.
Bob squinted. “I was hoping you’d know.”
I examined the item (a small shovel with a wine bottle attached), which I had picked for Donna, and said, “Could be for shoveling pasta, could be for catching leaks while plumbing, or could be for collecting rooster poop.”
Donna laughed so hard she nearly dropped her spumoni.
By the end of the evening, everyone was full, sticky from the heat, and smiling. Donna declared it a perfect birthday.
“Good food, good friends, and one possibly useful object,” she said.
The spumoni is so big, it needs to be shared.
Then the owner came by and led the restaurant in a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday!
The cake is going home tonight!!
We had a good time being with great friends.
Love birds after almost 47 years together!
On the way out, Bob and I accosted a large group and asked if anyone knew Sheriff John and the song “O Put Another Candle On Your Birthday Cake?” Two old farts, about our age, said they remembered. So Bob and I, plus two guys, treated their table to a full-length non-stop chorus of the song! The youngsters looked at us as if we were crazy! “Who is Sheriff John?”
Remember, this video is 70 years old (before color TV existed).
It was still light out when we headed home. Mary fed Grace, and as she was busy eating, we hit the pool.
We stayed in until the Sun set and the moon was up!
At 10:30 pm we crashed!
