Oh mercy and muskrat love. I am nearly at the finish line in my race to wear the same pair of shoes every day this summer. Of course I count summer as June 1 to August 31. Meteorological summer. Hey, at least I’m wearing shoes at all.

I’ve got God talking to me again, and you all know what that means, and Jessica Simpson told me to start doing squats. So I started doing squats, and my butt hurts. She is right to tell me to improve myself. I am glad the celebrities of this nation are looking out for me. It only hurts because I am weak and useless.

Anyway, God said to have Kraft dinner for lunch, and I can’t argue. He helped me find my book of stamps. That’s more love than some parents show their children in a lifetime.

My own mother recently let me know she is reading a book that reminds her of our life in the woods. She said “There is a description of drowning a rat in the toilet, and lot’s [sic!] of references to Green Acres and about every backyard having a willow tree. (Ours would have had a willow tree except the deer ate it twice so it was still pretty small when we left the country. It was the tree we planted to commemorate Cara’s birth.)”

She has such flair, and she doesn’t even know it. The rat in the toilet was my discovery. I was about six. I just opened the lid, and there he was, swimming around all beady-eyed. We never figured out how he came to arrive in the toilet, but there was a complicated theory involving the septic tank and a ventilation pipe. My dad held him under the water with the fire tongs until he stopped swimming. He was much too big to flush.