What a month. Two weeks in India, which was a great trip. Saw an IPL game (that’s a 3-hour format cricket league in India) which was a blast. The Mumbai Indians beat the Deccan Chargers (Hyderabad) by two wickets with only 4 balls remaining. I visited Amby Valley and Karla Caves. Had a great trip to Mysore from Bangalore. Even though the last 17 klicks took 90 minutes. Then watched a great cricket match, seeing the winner grab the game by scoring 14 runs on the last three balls.

And there was good progress at work too. There is no substitute for visiting an offshore team and seeing them in person.

It was good to get home. There was a Solar eclipse starting at the end of Don Giovanni, with an arrival at home just as the clouds come in. But I should explain. The last concert in our annual subscription to the LA Phil was a performance of Don Giovanni. Not excerpts as I expected, but the whole opera. That’s four hours. A fabulous performance, but our eclipse viewing was limited by the marine layer coming in just at the greatest extent of the eclipse.

We finally got back to Lake Riverside, I faced five weeks of grass growth. Six barrels full of grass. Moderate (I’m being charitable) infiltration of gophers. But most things ok. We had a great visit to the Living Desert zoo in Palm Desert. It is a very good zoo.

Less fortunately, I had an unfortunate encounter with Papaya, our recently adopted cat. She showed up as a starving kitten/stray after Sam (our old alpha male cat) died. The we discovered she was pregnant. She gave birth in the outdoor house I built for Sam years ago and they are all safely and completely human adapted kittens.

Last weekend was Papaya’s first trip to LRE. On Sunday morning at 3am, she got caught in the rope handle of a paper bag and freaked out. I found her in the house and then proceeded to pick her up to remove the loop of rope around her neck. I didn’t require stitches, but now I know what an existentially scared cat can do. I am happy for antibiotics and for my tetanus shot.

I’ll write an update on how we deal with the seven cats in our house at a later date.

With God’s blessings and help, it has been a good month.