We dropped off Rebecca at Girl Scout camp today. She wasn't thrilled about it, what with the humidity and the bugs and not knowing anyone, but I think she'll be ok because it's only a 6 day camp. She'll miss her computer (hours of IMs) and her friends and air conditioning. She wanted to know if she could go to a co-ed camp next year, though this may be the last camp year for her.

After we dropped her off at camp we went to see my sister's new house, which is the vicinity of the camp. It's way out in the sticks, very quiet and peaceful, not much in the way of amenities. She'll have only one neighbor, but the farmland on either side looks like it's ripe for development in a few years (especially since it's only 90 minutes from New York). No stores or gas stations for miles - I guess I've grown used to the comforts of being in the suburbs where everything is just close enough.

While driving through the small town nearest our house, there were torrential downpours, although I didn't really think anything of it until later. We were at our house for somewhere between 30-45 minutes and then went back through town (or tried to) to go out to dinner. Two streets were closed and we figured that there were tree branches down. By the time we were driving back from dinner the one street, which was where we encountered the heaviest rain was open again. In that short span of time between driving back from dropping off Rebecca and going out to dinner, it appears that something like a tornado touched down along that road - gigantic tree limbs were down, and there were 3 trees with trunk diameters of about 18 inches that were snapped clean off. Thinking about the amount of force necessary to do that makes me shudder.

Exercise: Not a blessed thing.

Books: Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Well-written, engaging, even to a non-baseball fan. Morals of the story, so far: baseball is not run scientifically, anymore so than most businesses are; people can be faced with evidence that "common knowledge" or traditions are not true and still use them for their decision making; change is hard - people do not adapt well to it.

Music: Heard Alexi Murdoch's Orange Sky today. That's just begging for a list of the top 5 songs with colors in their titles.

Movies: Wanted to see The Swimming Pool today, but the timing did not work out. That one will have to wait for DVD.

Cats: In order to assert their dominance over their domain, Xena and Hercules will sniff poor Tabitha when she's snoozing somewhere in their realm (i.e., anywhere in the house). This makes her all jumpy and crabby and she snaps at them and runs away. At least now she can tolerate being in the same room with them.

Dreams: Already reported upon.