The first week back at work was not thrilling, but then I didn't have high expectations. Unfortunately the collection development people thought the crap I had was wonderful and a valuable addition to the catalogue (groan) so I am forced to catalogue it. How a 1960's catalogue of machine parts can arouse so much interest is beyond me, but I serve an apparently weird clinetele.

The visit with SIL and BIL went fine, with the stand-out in their estimations was my pumpkin pie. Huh? Since they have no such thing here, it must be as exotic as a pavlova is to an American. BIL voluntarily took on a piece of home maintenance I have been unable to deal with (back screen/security door sticking) by removing the door, adjusting its wheels and cleaning out the tracks. The last bit I could have done but not the rest. Thank you, G.

We are in another patch of 35C+ temperatures, until Tues or Weds they say. I shudder to think of my electricity bill but I am able to do stuff around the house with a/c where last year I would have been flat on the bed sweating. Instead I managed to iron, and poke away at genealogy. I have no berries except blackberries which have outdone themselves. I may actually accumulate enough to make jam. I have lots of green tomatoes but no ripe ones. The pumpkin vine is beginning to expand and my last lima beans are up. I've had one cucumber but no zucchini.

Reading The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman and while he's very excited and enthusiastic about the global economy, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yes, isn't convenient we can buy cheap clothes from China but should we? I realize that there isn't much hope of resurrecting the garment industry in the US or Australia, and we reap the benefits every time we shop, but there has to be a down wide to this. The Chinese worker is making much more than they would have pre-globalization but are they going to want more? Are we ready for China to deal with a middle class with greater aspirations than buying cheap knock-offs of designer labels? Since I tend to shop at K-Mart I am at the bottom of the food chain, but I worry about the big boys throwing punches above me. I don't think the flat world is a fair world, maybe fairer than it was but a lot of people lost jobs along the way and I don't see former clothing workers re-inventing themselves as designers of bleeding edge aerospace components, just because that's where the jobs and money went. I know I couldn't live without constsnt Internet connection and that has a wider reaction than me being able to do genealogy research at a distance. Something to think about and watch in the future.

Meanwhile I have suddenly developed a nasty chest cough with no other symptoms to help excplain it. I coughed all night and don't look forward to doing it again and would like it to go back wherever it came from.