Monday morning and it is going to be a hot and sultry day. The heat index is supposed to reach 105 degrees today, yuk! I'm writing to you from the Deaconess Surgery Center waiting room. Ms. Kate is scheduled for a cardio-vascular Doppler test this morning. It shouldn't take a long time to do and is totally non-invasive. They are just checking her blood flow. This appointment is a follow-up to one she had some months ago. That one came back good but we don't take chances.

Today is the day of the "Great American Eclipse". We are going to have a total eclipse of the sun today around 1330 hours. Evansville is in the 90% zone and the area for totality for our region is about eighty miles south of us. The news is showing that the interstate south of us is bumper tpo bumper traffic with people trying to get to the "zone of totality". The actual time span for totality is only about a minute and a half also the duration from beginning to end is about two hours. It --- the nation is going silly over it. I understand part of the excitement because celestial events are something thata I love to watch too. But -- I'll be satisfied to stay home. The sky will get darker for a bit, and then it will get bright again. I heard last night on the news that if a person uses their phone and turns on the camera so that they are taking a picture of themself, it is said that they can watch the eclipse over their shoulder.

________

Ms. Kate finished up rather quickly and we went to Denny's for some breakfast. I love their strawberry and crime pancake breakfast.  Now we are back home and Ms. Kate is folding laundry. I had started a couple of loads this morning before we left. She and I routinely share doing the laundry. I've been doing laundry since I was a young kid. I remember when I was real young we had a wringer washer with a dual washtub set up in the basement of the house. There was a clothesline down there that we hung the clothes on to dry during the winter and we had a triple clothesline setup in the back yard that my father made out of pipe. That's where my mother hung clothes until it got so cold that they would freeze on the line. I remember thaat you had to be careful when feeding the clothes through the wringer or you could get you hands and fingers caught in the wringer.

We attended a very good church service yesterday. We went to Crossroads Christian Church. I'm not crazy about the praise and worship music that they do. There is no recognizable tune to follow and they repeat the same phrases over and over. But the sermon was dynamic. I told Ms. Kate that I admire people that can stand there and preach like that; seemingly without notes and so at ease and enthusiastic. It's not an ability that I have; but --- I thank God for allowing me to share The Word with my style for over a decade.

Time to move on to other things. I pray your day will be filled with joy. I pray for those who aare having a rough day today and I also pray for all of the travelers on the road today who have ventured out to areas to witness the eclipse. Until next time --- Shalomn.