After another stressful day, family members and I headed to the new Whole Foods in Cupertino. While it didn’t get to 100°, it came close. Earlier, I made peanut brittle for photographing purposes, and that was more than enough cooking for one day.

We emerged with two kinds of pizza, a burrito, a quart of clam chowder, a turkey dinner and a pint of Ciao Bella chocolate gelato. The two customers in front of me got the prime rib, which probably was the better choice, dinner-wise. No mashed potatoes. Dry turkey with very little gravy. The rosemary potatoes weren’t bad, but mashed would have had the soothing qualities I sorely missed.

Back at home, there was cold yellow watermelon and orange-fleshed cantaloupe. It’s a toss-up between the fruit and the gelato as to which was the tastiest part of the meal.

No movie, too hot. In the queue, Perfume and 10 Items or Less plus another Monarch of the Glen disc.

It can afflict a player or a spectator, and affects more men than women.

Perhaps you heard about the turmoil in the stock market over the past few days (weeks). If you own stock, maybe you got sick to your stomach. I spend huge amounts of time staring at numbers, and yesterday, for a long while, I took those numbers off my screen. Went outside. Looked at the tomato plants, deadheaded some flowers. Dropped my camera.

The Feds did their best to soothe matters. When they massage the market, they do it with lots of bucks, $78 billion, in fact. So what exactly does that mean, putting billions into the economy? This is the internet, we have the answer.

Yesterday I dropped my camera, and much as a peanut butter sandwich lands with its messy side to the floor, so my lens caught the full brunt of gravity. Part of it was actually bent.

This just after I got a new set of studio lights. The gods were angry. It’s been a tough week all around. I began online shopping immediately.

When a family member came home and learned the news, he took one look, announced that the lens was toast but the camera was fine. I spent a large part of today deciding which lens would be a suitable replacement without breaking the bank.

A few minutes ago, several friends of the family member showed up. One took the lens, and began fiddling with it, rotating it back and forth. He did not hear the ‘crunching’ sound noted earlier. We discussed lenses, and he approved of my choice, all the while he was working the lens. After a bit, he handed it back. ‘There,’ he said. ‘All fixed.’

He was right. It was. Unbent. Soundless. Moving smoothly. Thanks, Will!

But I’m still ordering that other lens.

Pay close attention to your vegetables. You too might discover a stupendous something to sell on eBay.

While I grow a few heirloom tomatoes, my specimens are puny compared to what’s available at farmers’ markets and the local supermarkets. The neighborhood varmints pay more attention to my ripening tomatoes than I do, apparently. Over the weekend, I found a very large Cherokee black beside a raised bed with several bites out of it. I was not aware I had one this big. Easy come, easy go.

Off to the farmers’ market I went, looking for a few robust heirlooms to photograph, the ones with broad shoulders and a faintly threatening air. Pricey, as usual, but I left with a bagful. On the way home, I stopped at Nob Hill, the big one on Grant Rd. for fresh corn, and found that their produce section featured a huge display of - you guessed it - heirloom tomatoes. For $2/lb. less.

There they sit, brooding in their hugeness, waiting for me to finish making seafood pasta before I can pay attention to them again.

Did you take awesome shots on your vacation, only to have some of the views marred with unnecessary clutter or obstructions? Maybe you got a breathtaking pic of a tropical sunset with your beloved in the foreground, and now he’s your ex. Whom you never, ever want to see again, especially blocking a nice sunset.

Help is at hand from a Carnegie Mellon research team using online photo library databases (like Flickr) and that algorithm.

Because at least two family members are Bruce Campbell fans, we watched this film with varying degrees of enthusiasm a while back.

I’ve seen worse, and I’ve seen better. One could say this about many movies, but this one involves a world where Elvis is alive, but old and living in a nursing home. Perhaps for the 30th anniversary of his death, it’s worth a look. I found the copy we watched at the local library. It seems to always be available.

It has been in the queue forever since most of the family members aren’t into this sort of thing. But work has been unusually stressful, so it was time. All I knew was that it had to do with penguins, Hugh Jackman and Robin Williams were part of the voice talent, and it was probably uplifting.

If you haven’t seen it, that’s all you need to know. Oh yes, and there’s music.

The barbecued beef ribs were a bit overcooked and on the dry side since I forgot to add more sauce. I was feeling creative, so the beans came out of a can, but embellished with my famous sauce.

They started down the redwood tree when I was deep into my book (She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb) and half asleep. Still upset at losing all my goldfish, I got my flashlight and shone it outside. Nothing. Not that I could see that much with the shrubbery.

About an hour or so later, the sound of claws on bark woke me. I thought I would try to figure out how many there were instead of a futile attempt at spotting them. Clickety clickety whomp. Clickety clickety whomp. Six at least. From what I can tell today, they went through the tomatoes, knocking down some ripe ones, not eating them. There is a new bare spot near the mint plant, looks like something large has been rolling around.

The gophers have made part of the backyard a treacherous spot for walking around despite the scattering of human hair, a recommended but questionable deterrent. I’m thinking I should just hire a skilled bow hunter. There is actually one in the family, although he lives elsewhere.