It's a seven hour drive to Ashtabula Ohio, which is where I would have liked to have gone to see the eclipse, which would have put me at 4 pm this afternoon...

This morning's prompt is 'mole rat'.

Cute...

BTW, I found my coccyx last night after over half a century of not being well acquainted with my tail bone. I was struggling to climb onto the rider mower and came down hard, not into seat but not the hard plastic corner of the mower body. No tears but I wailed and moaned for about ten seconds I wasn't concerned with anything else...

In related news I managed to swap out the old battery for the new one which my brother Cliff got us. Got the rusty bolt off, fished around for the washer which fell on the floor of the garage, made the connections and charged it, got it running, restarted after it cut out when I engaged the blades, it was quite the production. Thanks Cliff!

***

"The rats are getting bolder," Brenda said quietly to Ben alone.

"It's their world now."

"I refuse to accept that."

"And I love you for it- what?"

"You said..."

"Oh." Ben smiled. "I guess that just slipped out."

"Did you mean it? I mean..."

"Yeah. I did. I do."

Ben reached out, just a little uncertainly and Brenda grabbed his hand. She turned her head away and wiped her eyes with the other hand.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine."

***

Tom saw his mother smiling and asked, "What is it?"

"A public display of affection," Carol said, looking down at her mending. Tom pointedly didn't turn to look. He could do it for himself, mostly, but he wasn't good at it and this patch she was working an x-wing into it, because she was a star wars fan and a little embroidery was good for the soul.

"Satisfied?"

"Fairly. I'm happy for them."

Tom rolled his eyes. "Yeah, me too.  Maybe they'll be less annoying about it all, now?"

"I wouldn't hold my breath."

Carol