Thursday, July 14th 1977-in which we have a "Peculiar Day" and Stewart threatens to make a visit.

I've just finished reading a most peculiar book, House of Hate.  It was a first novel and it shows (who, for instance, would write "pursuant to" in a story, without even the excuse of a lawyer's letter?).  In fact it was a most peculiar day altogether.  Pete got me up at 9:30am.  He swore he'd eaten his ceral but the milk jug and his glass of milk were still in the refrigerator, full.  Gave Pete a bath before he got dressed since he didn't take one last night.  He played with his boats and submarine and rumbber duck.  We ate cantaloupe and then had pork chops with apple sauce and green beans from the farm (but they never did get really tender).  Pete left most of his pork chop because he kept finding invisible pieces of "fat".  He won't touch meat with fat on it-even pulls the fat off his bacon.  He did eat some of the packaged chicken.  The mail wasn't much of a haul today, my phone bill, the State Department of Revenue bill, and a form from the Welfare Office.  Yesterday I got an envelope marked "contains information about funerals-destroy if this material is offensive" and I did because it was.  Oh God, how it was!  We lay down for our naps but we had two phone calls and John Sandquist came by, so we gave up and got up.  John told me not to open my door unless I was certain who was there, because Stewart had called Chuck Smith, the hospital administrator and said he was coming later this week.  He finally told Chuck he would arrive in Boise on Friday.  And, as John says, "Ontario's not big enough to hide in".  Stewart complained to Chuck that John hadn't answered his letters, but John said the first 3 hadn't any return addresses so he couldn't anyhow.  I called Dad so he's coming over tomorrow to put chain bolts on the doors.  As John said, that will give me time to get to the phone anyway.  Then Vicky Plaza came over to watch TV ("Sesame Street", "Mr. Rogers", and "Electric Company") with Pete, just after we got back from visiting Betty Phipps (Petey was really visiting her little toy cars, but Betty and I had a long talk.  While Vicky was here Thelma called to invite us to a pageant at the migrant school in Payette.  Thelma took us over because Tom, Jim, and Ada were in it.  Let Pete have lemonade and a cookie (we'd rushed through our hamburger to be ready).  Marilyn called at 11:00pm to say she has tickets for Saturday's "magic Show" she's giving us.  Will go to the matinee (4:00pm) since Sylvia and I are going out at night.