I hope that you took some time today to show your love to the people you love. Of course, I would hope that you do that on a regular basis anyway. I met Rachel at an Olive Garden after work. We arrived at a good time; there was only a ten-minute wait. Our section was empty when we first arrived. But, by the time we were leaving, the section was full, the bar and waiting area was packed. There must have been at least an hour wait.

On Friday, I had a nice drive to work. In fact, since traffic was light, I had at least a half hour before I needed to be at work. As a bright yellow light on my dash indicated it was almost time to refuel, I decided to fill up before going in to work.

It was about seven thirty in the morning. I was not fully awake. I am standing at the pump with my eyes half closed when I hear a woman's voice. Some lady wanted to know if I wanted to read a pamphlet about Jehovah's Witness. I politely refused. I am not against religion; I just do not want to hear about when I am still half-asleep.

Rachel had her "Tigger" cast removed a few weeks ago. The doctor said that a number of patients turn their casts into lamps. I do not know if we are going to do that, but Rachel is keeping her cast for her Tigger room. Now, she is in an air cast. This means that she is a bit more mobile and can take off the cast whenever she needs to. This makes it easier to take showers and such. It also means that she is less dependent upon me.

Rachel had her splint removed last Monday. The doctor said that everything looked okay. He told her that he should have made the scar longer to connect with her Tigger tattoo. That way, it would look like Tigger was climbing something.

In the past few days, I visited The Cleveland Clinic a few times. Earlier in the month, Rachel felt a lump near her left ankle. Her doctor's initial though was that it was a cyst, but needed MRIs to be sure. The MRIs showed what appeared to be a torn tendon. Instead of a perpendicular tear, the tear was parallel. But, without surgery, it was difficult to tell.

Yesterday, we took down our inflatable turkey and put up our inflatable Christmas Tiggers. They did not last long. Sometime between midnight and 6:00 this morning, someone stole them. We, of course, called the police. But, there probably is not much that they can do.

Tagline for today: "When I first heard that Marge was joining the police academy, I thought it would be fun and zany, like that movie 'Spaceballs'. But instead it was dark and disturbing, like that movie 'Police Academy'." - Homer Simpson

Rachel and I again had breakfast at the local cafe before I headed to the office. I spent four hours there working and talking with my coworkers. Around lunchtime, I said that I would treat the office to lunch if they would figure out a place to eat. After debating for about fifteen minutes, I made an executive decision and said that we would get food from Chevy's. I was in the mood for Tex-Mex and Chevy's had been a regular eating spot for all of us.

When we got our dog Emily, we had problems seeing her in our backyard at night. She has a dark coat and at the time we didn't have much lighting in the back yard. So, we picked up a flashing ID tag at the local PETsMART. The tag is pretty cool. It only lights up when it's dark and when there is motion. This is exactly what we wanted.

I guess I'm overdue for a new blog entry. So, here goes: As you may (or may) not have noticed, autumn is upon us. Keeping with the season, I've changed the background of my web site. Leaves on a web side background are one thing, but out in our backyard the leaves are getting out of hand. Rachel and I raked up the yard one day. The next day it looked as though we hadn't picked up any leaves. At least, we have been putting the leaves to good use. We have been putting the leaves into pumpkin trash bags. We have two large pumpkins and eight smaller ones.