Lush, Wet Yards. The Marys Are Somewhere. Shannon?

Saturday, July 29, 2017. Things wouldn't be so boring if it would stop raining every day. The lawn has grown high again. I'm still working with no success on my my string lawn trimmer. It's missing either a part or an instruction--both of which are in an owner's manual whose location I know not. Aside from all that, I have at least been able to take about two-thirds of my walk around the grounds--but on the third lap, at which time I have been walking briskly for over an hour--it started to rain and I couldn't finish up. Dinner is a large cheese pizza from Pizza Man in Covington. Owner Paul Schrem is taking the day off, a common strategy now that his son has more or less taken the reins. I get the cheese pizza mainly because I have never done so. My standard pizza--I get it nine out of ten times--is called "the Board," made with fresh spinach, feta cheese, olive oil, garlic, herbs, capicola spicy ham, and olive oil. Just wanted to see what they could do with a New York-style pie. It suited me fine, and fed me for several days, as I back away from restaurants I visit frequently. Without Mary Ann around to denigrate the contents, I have been watching more television than I have in over twenty years. I don't think that's going to continue. Tonight I watched Saturday Night Live for the second or third recent time. Is it just me and my superannuated memories of its golden years, or has this program become really terrible? Sunday, July 30, 2017. I have breakfast at Mattina Bella, shooting the breeze with Vincent Riccobono. After that, I spend most of the day cleaning out my office at home. And doing a two-hour radio show, of course. It is very busy on the phones. And I'm surprised that nobody said anything about the debacle last week when I arrived over an hour late to go on the air. Monday, July 31, 2017. Clusters of clouds destined to become serious thunderstorms were gathering along Lunch Row, the stretch of LA 21 that has the most appealing array of restaurants in downtown Covington. I know I'm in trouble when I make the turn onto 21st Street, which will only take me closer to the many chain restaurants in the shopping mall district. I wind up in a restaurant that is itself a chain, but not a big one. DiMartino's began as a muffuletta specialist on the West Bank decades ago. Its North Shore place is better looking and more comfortable than those are, especially since the management dropped its order-and-pick-up-at-the-counter setup a few months ago. A few years ago I had a roast beef poor boy here and didn't find it especially good. But I'm always ready to try a dish or a restaurant again. I'm very happy I did this time. The bread was a whole loaf, like the braided, sesame-seeded Italian-style kind you see in Italian places. And Di Martino's menu is more Italian than anything else. So we're off to a good start. The roast beef was sliced perfectly, was a little on the rare side, and had the right amount of gravy (not too much, in other words). Most important: it's delicious. As good a roast beef as I've had in a long time. The denser bread and the limited gravy made for a sandwich that didn't fall apart after a few bites. It was also big enough that I took half of it home and made two lunches out of it. So this was my idea of a great day, even though I had to battle with a thick, forceful, white sheet of rain that made it difficult to find my turn to go home--let alone make the turn. I think the Marys may be on their way home from Shannon in Ireland, but I'm not sure. I can't reach them on the phone, although they can get me. But they don't. As usual, they are flying standby, and the Dublin airport is not amenable to jumping on board and flying with no notice today. What MA thinks of as fun is incomprehensible to me.