Definitely an IUD.

BUT--I may have found a clue to the car's propensity to tell me it's vastly overheating.

This morning the mail came too early for me to get a time-importatnt piece into the box. So, I took a deep breath and drove to the post office--about 3 miles.

About halfway there the temp gauge suddenly leaped to highest. Well, I'd driven the car short distances with it there and figured it was reasonably safe to do so again.

Got to the post office, put the letter in the box, and headed back home.

Surprise, surprise--about a third of the way home I noticed tht the temp gauge had suddenly dropped to lowest possible. Hmmm.

I called the mechanic (who has been trying to figure out why the temp appears to skyrocket and gave him the news. He seemed relieved (nothing like having a car problem with essentially no explanation.) I opined that the gauge might be the problem. I expect he's meditating on that this weekend. I'll stop by Monday and see what he thinks.

I'm still not going very far until I can be sure it's a gauge problem, rather than an incipient major malfunction.

But I'm feeling a bit relieved.

Other than that it was another large scale IUD. About lunch time it started to rain, so there went any ideas about outside work. Instead I've been reading and letting the giant black cat use me as a lean-upon.

And that reminds me that I put out possum food on the front porch, but I don't think I put out raccoon biscuits on the patio.