I could have sworn I just swept the kitchen floor yesterday, but this morning I opened the kitchen door and the brilliant clear sunlight highlighted every single little dog and cat hair that had escaped my broom. Either that or the dog and the cats were all busy shedding during the dark hours. Or both.

So one task on my "to do" list for today is to do the kitchen floor. Again. It's easily the most popular room in the house, as it has the table to one side where we eat and of course on the other side the water dish and dog food dish. Were I to leave the dog food outside, we would be knee-deep in possums overnight.

As it is, I've more than once seen the south end of a possum headed north through the cat door, presumably after eating its fill of dog food and then being startled by a human into bolting back through the door.

Today dawned lovely and cool, bright and sunny. This is the kind of weather that brought outsiders to southern California in droves.

I came to L.A. because my best friends had settled here. If I had known what the summers were like, I would have re-considered. By the time I had survived one summer, I had a job and car payments and had rented a house to live in. I had bounced from pillar to post all my life (during my childhood I had attended 21 different elementary and secondary schools) and was loath to move again.

So here I am.