Because the Fourth was on Sunday, we had Monday off. Naturally, considering our recent acquisition, we decided that we needed to find something to do that required driving.

The day started, of course, with the required sleeping in and lounging around, but eventually we decided we should go to the zoo. We did talk about going to the San Francisco zoo, since we'd had so much fun the last time, but by the time we finally settled on a destination it was getting too late to make the trek down to San Francisco and back, so instead we decided to head for the one in Sacramento.

Of course we didn’t' bother checking the weather before we left, else I think we might have ended up just staying home and inside where it was nice and cool. Today was just incredibly hot – and there wasn't even much of a breeze to help take the edge off. We got a little lost on the way to the zoo since I'd been expecting to see signs from the freeway (there *used* to be signs), so by the time we got there it was later in the afternoon. Just walking around for a few minutes I was wilting in the heat, and it was obvious the animals were all feeling just about as hot and lethargic as us humans. Plus, even though they're obviously in the process of building larger and nicer habitats for lots of the animals, I could not help but keep comparing the small size of some of the cages to the nice big areas they had in the San Francisco zoo.

Yesterday after work we drove the Prius back to the dealer to leave it there for the day, since we decided to splurge and get the special fabric and paint treatment for stain and scratch resistance. It felt weird to drop off that pretty new car and drive off without it after we've had it for less than a week, but they only needed it for the day. And that gave me the push to have Richard drop me off at Raley Field on the way to work so I could bike the rest of the way to my office – something I haven't done for far too long. One or the other of us has been sick, or we've been busy, or more often I've just found too many excuses to not ride, so it was probably for the best that we were forced to work with only one car for the day.

On the way home from dropping the car off yesterday we swung by my knitting-enabling friend's house, since it turned out she not only had a white peach tree overloaded with fruit she was desperate to get rid of, she also had a new batch of tiny little foster kittens that needed some attention. And who am I to refuse a chance to see fuzzy baby kittens, after all?

Seeing her white peach tree gave me a little bit of a start, since it was so covered in fruit that in some cases we couldn't even see the leaves beneath all the peaches. She handed me a bag and I went outside with her to fill it, not even making a dent in the sheer volume of peaches (and her tree is only a few years older than ours – this is what we have to look forward to in the not so distant future!) but Richard remained inside, having succumbed to the charms of the very tiniest of the foster babies. When we came back in he had the cutest little tabby girl all curled up right under his chin, and did not seem at all bothered by the fact that she was studiously trying to either chew on his beard or bat at his nose with one soft and tiny little paw. One of the other new fosters – a little buff girl – bounced randomly around the room and declared herself Queen of the Chair, defying any of the other kittens to even think about trying to take that perch away from her. There is nothing quite so adorably cute as watching tiny little kittens puff themselves out into full indignation, doing their very best to look intimidating and failing utterly.

We ended up foisting half the peaches off on Richard's parents, who came by to pick up his little sister's laptop, which he's spent the better part of the last few evenings working on, reinstalling the operating system and cleaning off all the spy-ware and ad-ware that's accumulated over the years. The remaining peaches will go with me this weekend. It is summer, after all, and what better reason for pie than summer, and a sack full of peaches picked fresh from the tree.