Happy Fourth of July

I couldn't get a good picture of the flag at the foot of my driveway--not enough breeze--so this clip-art will have to do. It's about as celebratory as I got today. Even forgot--or got so wrapped up in what I was doing--to go out on the front porch and see the neighborhood parade head for the school across the street. But it's been a good lazy day--cleaned my desk of all sorts of odds and ends, wrote a book review blog I promised someone (the book was William Marsh Rice and His Institute, meaning Rice University--great story; he was murdered!),  filed some papers, whittled my "to do" pile down and cleared out the cooking magazines. All this is a way of saying I avoided work on the novel in progress.
Also got a nap and did my yoga routine. If you read yesterday's blog, you may remember I mentioned, cryptically, the piriformis muscle. My right hip has been sore off and on, especially in going up steps, althoiugh it's much better lately. But my yoga/wellness guru thinks it may be the piriformis muscle (a small muscle behind the gluts) and has given me exercies to strengthen and stretch it. So far, no hip pain.
Capped the day off with dinner with Sue, my former neighbor who calls me her Fort Worth mom. We headed for one spot but it was closed--a place I'd never been and was curious to try. Driving down Magnolia was like driving down a ghost street--eveything was closed. We came to one restaurant that was open--in a location I'd been to before in previous incarnations. I didn't even get the name this time, but it was Mexican, and I had great ground sirloin tacos, filled with fine fresh vegetables and a bit of cheese. Sue had paella which she said was good but oh so rich. We talked--and argued, as we always do. I said something about the difference between Bush and Obama, and she said, in her own forthrigt manner, "I think that's complete bullshit!" We have fun because, with a generation between us, we are a lot alike but oh so different--she's a lot tougher than I am. She says it's because she works for lawyers. I think it's just a personality difference. But tonight was lots of fun.
Rat race the rest of the week.