orange cat came home with a detached claw stuck to his head

jordan crawled into bed with me at 3 am last night-- a familiar face and body even in the dark heat of these nights. he and his brother drove the 1200 miles back from montrose, colorado in one streak. what gallantry! what persistence! how admirable! i am glad he is back. we made our favorite breakfast this morning: homemade hash browns, eggs, bacon, and feta, scrambled together and topped with tabasco. yesterday the girls and i went crabbing again, floated the cove in inner tubes, and napped. two kingfishers chased each other overhead. sade tried the kayak out and ended up tipping it over when the paddle slipped out from her hands while she was trying to remove her skirt. we heard her surprised cries all the way across the cove. apparently, some guys in a boat went by without helping, just laughing. she composed herself shortly afterward, on her own, indignant. later, she was pinched by one of the crabs while trying to pull out it's life line. "i am going to eat you!" she snapped, and later, "everything that could have happened today did happen." we had many crab legs and many friends to eat them with. we drank beers and laughed and danced and were grateful for the crabs. julia brought us another flat of grasses and euphorbia for the garden. we are determined to make our gardens bloom and spiral, to gush and glow green. however, the heat,and the recent watering ban, is making this extremely difficult: the zinnias have become crisp brown stalks and kori's fuchsia dropped all it's leaves. my peppers, however, are flourishing! in my fretting over our yard i completely spaced and did not water jordan's plants for him while he was gone. my negligence killed his sensitive plant (possibly the name was foreshadowing of this very sorry event). i am very sorry. i do not think clearly in the heat. mostly i do not think clearly or consistently at all. my mind is like the terrain of the country, in some places rugged and bounding with mountainous thoughts, and in others a flat plain of silence and calm. right now my mind is a nebraskan prairie (i will never get over my antonia)