My choice of parking three and a half blocks away from the post office and walking there never seemed quite as inspired as it did today. I passed the post office on my way to the parking spot (shameful waste of gas, I know) and saw the chaos created by a tow truck blocking more than half of the spaces. And all this was on the day after a holiday. The post office has been closed for two days in a row, and people are eager for their mail.

An added benefit is that you meet the nicest people walking along the street. I guess they're nice. It's hard to tell, since they refuse to make eye contact. I don't press the point, since most of them are women and children who are suspicious of an old guy walking by himself. They should be cautious, I guess, but it's too bad. It just makes the occasional smile that much more of a lift to the spirits.

These aren't short city blocks, by the way, but long suburban blocks. This area is inside the city limits, not quite out in the country, but it doesn't feel like downtown. There's a middle school across the street and a gated condo community where I walk. Lots of long stretches of sidewalk unbroken by doorways and driveways. It's not much of a workout to walk, but it has to have some cardiovascular benefit.

It was back to the money problems today, but the skies are getting lighter. Two checks arrived, and I turned the Boss loose on the people who haven't paid us yet. It was enough to pay some of the most urgent bills. Urgency is determined by how insistently the creditor keeps calling, and how seriously we take their threats. They don't threaten collection usually, but something that would hurt us even more. They threaten to cut off our supplies of nuts and bolts, without which everything would fall apart (including the business).

The sun was out all morning, but it started to turn hazy, and by the time I went to check the house mail for the first time at 2:30 it had clouded over. In fact, I felt two drops of rain, one on the way out to the mailbox at the end of the drive, and one on the way back (empty-handed).

The second time I walked out to check the mailbox, at 3:30, a light rain was falling. I stepped out the front door, felt the big drops hitting me, and ducked back in to put on a jacket. It's not that I'm afraid of a little rain. I don't mind getting wet, but I wanted something to hide the mail under on my way back to the house. I wouldn't want all my bills to get wet.

It's a good thing the mail was there waiting for me. By 4:30, it wasn't sprinkling down in gentle summer droplets any more. It had turned into one of those winter showers where the icy drops cut through you like tiny knives. This probably means I won't be walking to the post office again tomorrow. I can stand it, but the mail doesn't come through it well.

Yeah, I know. Tornadoes are ripping through the middle of the country, tearing the roofs off movie theaters. I should complain about a little rain, right? Right. I'm actually not complaining. I'm just saying.

It's getting dark so early now (and especially on days with incoming storms like today) that I had to do something I really didn't want to do. I plugged in the old clunky table lamp and stuck it on the end of the dining table where I do my paperwork. It looks ugly there and the glare on the TV is even uglier, but I can't stop working at 4:00 just because I can't see what I'm doing, especially when I have two or three hours of work to get through.