Ladies gone to SP for meet Sat.; just me and the dogs here

The ladies left on a bus for Sao Paulo this afternoon and I returned to
an empty house. Unless you count two dogs and three fish, which I don't.
Unless someone can hold an intelligent conversation, the house is empty.
That even excludes some people I know.

Anyway, they're staying the night in the capital for a ladies day
tomorrow. Leila has a "festa junina" party, a cultural party, something
like country, done during June every year. All the schools and many
clubs host them. This one will be hosted by the music school where she
attends, but held at the owner's home, the next block down from our
house.

Speaking of block, yesterday the last lot in our stretch of street was
cleared for construction. When we moved here 12 years ago, only about
half of the some 96 lots in our little neighborhood had houses on them.
There are now few left. Our area of town is becoming highly developed;
it was nearly open country behind us when we arrived. SJC is growing,
exploding, and the property values have likewise ballooned, so much so
that we couldn't buy our house today if we tried to do it over again.

Some of that is the steady decline of the US dollar over the past 10
years, a good part also unusually steep rise in property here in SJC.
The population has grown from mid 400k to 700k today, over a 15-year
period. A huge hike in human souls packed together.

Speaks all the more why we need to be here teaching the gospel.