Tomorrow is a big day. Alex is coming home (not home) and we are all immediately going to Arizona. Well, not immediately, but pretty soon. The week of July 4^th this year was about the only time Laura and Thomas could get a week off to scatter Dad’s ashes, so we are going to the Grand Canyon then. They will actually be arriving tomorrow, a day before us, since there was a conflict with Alex’s France dates. So tomorrow around noon Alex gets in to O’Hare, we will pick him up and stay overnight in Chicago near Midway and fly to Phoenix on Sunday morning (early). Alex is ready to come home, he happens to be in France while they are having record heat, hotter than Arizona actually. He’s been having a good time and there might be a girl that likes him on the trip, maybe….Monday I was in a bit of an accident on the way home from work: in heavy traffic along Center Street I heard a crash, then a split second later got a real jolt from behind. A Nissan Versa had smashed into the rear of a VW Golf behind me, which pushed the Golf into the truck’s back end. The Versa’s front end was smashed all to heck – bits of plastic all over the street, a spreading pool of coolant below it, airbags popped – and the Golf was pretty beat up in the back and had a perfect square hole punched in the front bumper from my hitch receiver. While we were waiting for the police to take all the details down, the driver of the Versa asked me if I thought her car could be repaired. I was noncommittal but it is totaled. Apparently she just recently paid it off. There was no visible damage to the truck, but I took it in to the shop today and they found the electrical socket for the trailer was pretty beat up, otherwise it was fine…. Softball turned in a valiant effort this week but came up short 9-12….We’ve spent the past week while Alex was gone painting his room. We did a good deep clean in there too, which it needed, and purged some old clothes and junk. We also patched the holes and replaced the vent covers. The street signs wallpaper border is gone, and the room is painted a silvery gray on 3 walls and a burnt orange on the other. He didn’t pick out the colors but we figured they would be acceptable for him. All the posters and pictures are also down, we figure he can put back up whatever he wants when he gets home. Now we just have to keep it a secret until we all get home.