Tom Clancy

At the dog park, Ray has invented something cute. He has two dachsunds, Maggie and Charlie. Charlie follows him w/o a leash. So Ray has attached Maggie's leash to Charlie's collar. Putt, putt, putt, the two weinie dogs follow their leader to the gate.

Woke at ten. Off to Ft. Woof. Cookout with Martha and Jeff this aft.

The park was beastly hot. I get so irritated with people altho my dog is at fault. Blitzen was humping this little female.
bitch is the technical term
I believe there is a condition i term peri-esterus. weeks before they come in heat females give off pheronomes. (Other owners of fixed males agree with me.)
So many owners of small dogs think their dogs are babies, literally. I also think Blitzen humps little dogs just to get attention. Everybody goes into orbit. I mean the humans go into orbit. They pick up their dog, and Blitzen thinks this is a great game and he barks his play bark which frightens everybody. Well, I am home in the air conditioning. I need to shower and go to the cookout. Blitzen will be driving.

Cookout was great. Jeff grilled a turkey. We sat and chatted, drinking wine and beer. First we talked about the Battle of Hastings, then the Battle of Crecy, then the factors contributing to the dissolution of the middle ages, and finally the American Civil War. After eating nummies, I took a nap. The turkey was out of this world. Martha sent home pieces in freezer bags. Potato salad. And sorbet for desset. Some strange kind of berry from the Amazon, acacia.
On the way home I saw fireworks in all directions.


BOOK NOTES
Tom Clancy made a mistake. He thot the English won the Battle of Hastings with their long bows and we continued to speak English.

Actually the Duke of Normandy won the Battle of Hastings with soldiers who had stirrups on their saddles, giving them better balance. And we gave up speaking Anglo Saxon English. Our Creole language contains about half the words derived from Norman French. (who pronounce chateau like castle)Or is it vice versa, Leslie?

I think Clancy was thinking of the Battle of Crecy in 1315. Long bows sent arrows like a cloud over the sun. I have been trying to remember that passage about "band of brothers on St. Crispin's Eve"

BOOK REVIEW:
Gillian Roberts, *All's Well That Ends*
I picked up the book and read the jacket. This is the last of the Amanda Pepper series. I went to the web site. Roberts wanted to stop while the series was good. fourteen books. I feel as if I had lost a friend.

Sue Henry, *Degrees of Separation*
Sue Henry has created a new plot. I loved her first novel, *Murder on the Iditarod Trail*, which I have read about three times. Jesse Arnold is a musher who raises, trains and runs dog sled teams. I liked her second book. From then on the plots remained the same with different names. Even another series about Maxie and a dachsund. I thot I would try this latest, and it has an inventive plot. No snow. So her dogs are not mushing.


Hugs, Dr. Liz