plums, a vet visit and ratatouille

we've had apricots and plums in our vegetable box these past few weeks. i've really been enjoying them.

on monday evening at 6 pm, greg and i took hermione to the vet to have the tumor on her bottom checked. it's been growing again (we had had it surgically removed in april). there's not much more we can do except try to slow the growth. the vet gave her a steroid injection and gave us some steroid pills for her to take for the next two weeks, and also an ointment. she has to wear a collar again to keep from licking it (it's been very sore and bleeding again). i don't really like giving her steroids, but i'm willing to see if it helps a little.

when we walked out of the vet's office, this was the sight that greeted us . .

we wondered what was going on and first thought it was a fire . .

then we realized it was a facade collapse.

 there were a lot of bricks lying on the sidewalk . .

for us, the freaky part of it was that we had just walked along this stretch of sidewalk, beneath this building, on our way to the vet.

this isn't the first building that has had its facade loosen up along this street. during hurricane sandy the whole side of a building came off and the inhabitants had to leave. of course, that was during a hurricane. today was just a hot summer day . . maybe the expansion of the bricks in the heat caused an imbalance? here's the cbs local news account of the incident.

i actually just found a clip of the hurricane sandy facade collapse! someone just happened to be filming from across the street. you can access it here. it's about the fifth movie down and occurs about 50 seconds in.

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this evening i cooked for the first time in a week and a half (it's just been too hot and humid; i've been doing greens with salmon, chicken or tuna salads instead). even though it was still a bit hot, i decided to make ratatouille as i had two beautiful eggplants in the fridge from last thursday's fresh food box.

i used only one eggplant and one zucchini (if chanda was here, i probably would have used both eggplants and two zucchini!).

 and then i added scallions, garlic and cherry tomatoes and two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.

it was delicious. (i love eggplant!)

 this came from our around the world cookbook . . and i always feel like watching the movie after making it!