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Wednesday, January 30, 2002 The narcissus are finally in bloom. We thought they were going to skip a year. Tuesday, January 29, 2002
Oh those computer virus guys. They are scamps.
If you've used computers for a while, you know that dot com was originally (and still is) a file extension for executable files. But it is better kown now as the extension for web addresses. Today someone sent me an email with an attachment named "www.myparty.yahoo.com" which looks like a web address, but is actually an executable file. I use Yahoo mail, which can scan attachments, and guess what! Yep, it was a bug. Be warned. By the way. I typed that web address into my browser. Yahoo automatically forwarded me to a news story about the virus. Monday, January 28, 2002
I have finally found another blogger in New Iberia. I don't know him, but I'll keep an eye on his page.
His layout is different. Piet Mondrian meets Bill Gates. I had been contemplating adding New Iberia pages to my website, but he's already done it, and pretty well to boot. I guess I'm not the best person to do New Iberia pages anyway. As I tell people: I don't live in New Iberia. I just sleep there.
Nice quiet weekend. Thank goodness the holidays are over. I spent the entire weekend just hanging out with Janice. Saturday we slept extra late, and then enjoyed coffee on the porch swing. Later, we went for a walk down Main St. We stopped at the Shadows on the Teche to stroll the grounds, pet the cats, and look at the bayou and the tourists. From there we walked downtown. New Iberia’s downtown shops are notorious for being closed almost all the time. Some of them will open by appointment, but who wants to do that? If you drag the owner out to open the place, you feel obligated to buy something. But to our amazement, they were all open. We had left the house with only our keys. No wallets. No cash. There’s a nice new coffee shop we would have liked to visit. And they looked like they could have used the business. We strolled as far as Claire’s shop and visited with her a while. She has a great little shop where we could have easily spent a paycheck or two.
The walk back seemed twice as long as the walk out. I brought my cane with me, which was just a walking stick on the way out, but became a cane on the way back. Honestly, though, it does make walking more bearable. When we got back to the house we decided to have just one martini. As we sat on the porch swing drinking it, we saw Wilda pass, honking her horn. Janice jumped up and got to the phone to call her (Wilda always carries her cell phone). We had just been talking about her and how we really should all go out for oysters. She already had dinner plans, but invited us to join her, along with Janice’s brother Glenn and his wife, whom they were meeting at Gator Cove. Gator Cove is a working class Cajun restaurant where we, and literally hundreds of locals, enjoyed boiled crawfish and other delicacies, including alligator. I think Louisiana may be the only place in the country where restaurants have big lavatories in the dining area where people line up to wash their hands. Just a local thing, I guess. Sunday, we hung out and watched a lot of TV and finally took down the Christmas Tree. We were motivated by the news story about the Enron executive who was depressed and was noted to still have his tree up. Janice and I looked at each other and said “uh oh”. Another Louisiana tradition is to leave the tree up until Mardi Gras. Only the Christmas decorations are removed and replaced with Mardi Gras decorations in early January. We don’t do a Mardi Gras tree, so it was time to haul that thing upstairs. And yes, we did exercise a lot. Several times a day as the mood struck. No visible results to report yet. Friday, January 25, 2002
I've noticed that far too many bloggers refer to their blogs as "rants" so, until further notice, mine will be known as hasty insights.
Whenever I go to flea markets or similar places with Janice, she invariably lingers over the stuff she wouldn't buy in a million years. I don't know why, but she can't pass up something tacky without picking it up and studying it at length. She even has a particular tone of voice she uses. Without really opening her mouth, she says something like "oooooooooooh my goddddddd. Who in the world would want such a thiiiiiiing?" Surrounded by nice stuff, she can't tear herself away from the truly horrid.
They were thinking of people like Janice when they started Who Would Buy That website. This might actually get Janice onto the Internet.
Some of my online sailing buddies have gone into business for themselves. Check them out at Harmony Boatworks. Thursday, January 24, 2002 I already told you that I have moved into my new window office. My previous office never felt like home, so I never tried to make it nice. With the new office I decided to arrange things a bit better and put some artwork on the walls. Being cheap, I decided to put up some stuff that I already had, but wasn't using. The pictures above are of four posters which we never hung after moving into the house 8 ½ years ago. They just look out of place here. So they're on the way to the office. Somehow, I've had these posters all these years without noticing what they have in common. Can you see it? Why don't I just tell you.. All four posters are dated 1982. Two are for art exhibits that year, one is for an art lecture, and one is for a balloon festival (the only event I didn't attend). All in 1982. If you visited a home displaying this collection, you could draw certain assumptions about the owners. You might say "here lives a young wannabe artsy couple... ages 22 and 23, who just set up housekeeping and ran out and framed all the artsy art they could get their hands on in a hurry." And you'd be amazingly accurate. This is the kind of impression I'd have gone to lengths to avoid at that time, but you just can't hide who you are, can you? We used to admire older people who had collected nice things all their lives and had art and antiques and such. Now we are those older people... with art, antiques and such. I need to look around and see what obvious faux pas I'm committing and might only notice 20 years from now.
Thanks to Shane for pointing out that my Ship's Log hadn't been updated with Monday's sail. I had forgotten to update that blog with my new password. It's working now. Wednesday, January 23, 2002
I hate to say this. Even worse, I hate to DO it… but the dreaded “E” word has crept into my lifestyle. That’s right. I’ve started to exercise (shrieks of horror!).
Every year during the holidays I put on a few pounds, but this year has been the worst. I’ve put on about ten pounds and I feel like a bloated pig. I still wear size 30 pants, but 32 would feel a lot better. Just as Janice swore she’d never wear double digits, I have to draw the line at 30. We’ve had a Total Gym in the corner of the TV room for about a year, but it’s a very lazy machine. It’s more sedentary than we are. So I’ve had to drag it out and give it a workout. Believe me, it’s not a happy machine. Home exercise equipment in America enjoys a lifestyle that even a cat would envy. Ours has sat idly for months, watching television in its fetal position, blaming Janice and me for its slovenly ways. Well, it’s time for some discipline and hard work. Our machine could take a lesson from the liquor cabinet, which is a hard working contributor to our domestic lifestyle. I’m giving him a well-deserved vacation while I devote some time to whipping the Total Gym into shape. Lazy bastard. Denying the liquor cabinet of a loving father! Wilda’s husband Al tells me that it’s hopeless. He’s a transplant from New England who married a Cajun, like I did, and knows that the odds of staying trim and eating local fare are about as good as (fill in your own metaphor). Janice and I watched the Total Gym video again the other day. Since she has advanced degrees in psychology, I asked if we would benefit from just watching the exercises performed by those taut models. I was delighted to hear that the answer is yes! As long as you picture yourself doing the workout, and how it might feel. But some of those taut models make me picture myself doing entirely different activities, so I guess I’ll be doing the real exercises. Don’t worry. I’m not taking before and after pictures. How cruel do you think I am? Tuesday, January 22, 2002
Well I finally got to go sailing again. Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day, so I had the day off. The day was too pretty to waste.
Click the menu above, then go to the sailing page and click the "Ship's Log" to read about it. That ship's log hasn't had an entry in far too long. Saturday, January 19, 2002
My mail account has a spam blocking feature, but I can view the offending emails that get ditched by the screeners. Out of curiosity, I looked at them today. This was quite original, or at least it was new to me:
Hello, What you are about to read is not a fabrication it is 100% true. My name is Regina; I am a mother of 2 wonderful children. In November of 2000 I lost my job as a result of a slowing economy. I have been struggling to find a job and money is in short supply. As a result of these tough times I have become desperate!!! I need to make a few dollars for my family and you can help. Listed below are 8 Adult Porn Site Topics and their links. I did not make up the topics nor did I create the sites. But by you picking a topic, visiting the site and signing up for a membership, I get a couple dollars towards my fight for survival. Memberships are cheap and my family needs the money badly. Can you help us out please? Thanks a lot in advance for your support. Sincerely, Desperate Regina This was followed by links to several porn sites. Sleazy, but interesting way to drum up porn business. Friday, January 18, 2002
I spent the last day and a half moving into my new office. Promotions have been banned in my agency, so my only upward mobility will be in the form of improved geography. I now have a larger office with a very large window. No extra money, clout. prestige, or vacation time. Just square footage and a view of the fruit stand across the street. But that's more than I had last week.
Before the play Wednesday night, we killed time in a pet supply superstore. Janice only buys the finest food for the cats, and the supply was diminishing. We had gotten what we came for, when Janice spotted little plastic nursery pots of grass. Yes. grass in a pet store. People who don't have cats don't realize that they love to eat grass. The pet store owners know this. Our male cats especially seem to seek it out whenever they go outdoors. Marvin's first order of business is to chew a few blades as soon as he's released from the house.
Despite the fact that we have over an acre of grass at our disposal, for which we are already well mortgaged, Janice decided that these little pots of the exact same grass were must-have items for the cats. So for $2 we bought a 3X3" pot of grass. Usually cats tend to reject any noveties you bring them from the store, but the grass investment was a wise one. All four of the cats went ga ga for the tiny plot of turf. We pluck three or four blades and hold them in front of a cat's face, then hope we don't lose our fingers. Smudge is especially enthusiastic over the green treat. So when you see grass in the pet store, now you know why it's there. Thursday, January 17, 2002
As promised, I am reporting back on our evening of theater. Janice met me at my office yesterday for dinner and a show. We first ate at The Blue Dog Café, which you may have guessed, is owned by George Rodrigue, our local folk artist who became an international pop artist when he stumbled onto the blue dog idea. I doubt that he paints at all anymore. The blue dog art on the walls looked like they had been produced by a graphics firm hired by the artist. He makes millions with those things. You never know what will be a hit with the public.
I won't review the food, since I am no connoisseur, but Janice and I agreed that it was exactly like all the other food at every other Cajun restaurant in Louisiana. If you tourist here, and think you've had real Cajun cooking, you are very much mistaken. For the genuine article, you have to be invited into someone's home. I'm sure this applies to all cultures. Off to the theater. As I predicted, Frank Gorshin was the real talent of the show. He's aged quite a bit, but he still gives a good performance. His character, Willie Clark, was an old Jewish Vaudevillian who was being pressured to do his old act one more time with his old partner, played by Van Patten. The set was a dilapidated New York hotel room, which was impressively built. Gorshin's character had become a shut-in curmudgeon who's main contact with the outside world was his nephew, a theatrical agent. The nephew sets up the reunion with Van Patten's character. Honestly, Van Patten could have been substituted with any aging actor, or even someone from the audience. He added little to the part, but he did seem to remember all of his lines, so let me not be too picky. The part of the nephew was played by James Van Patten, presumably Dick's son. You didn't have to be Isaac Newton to predict the apple's trajectory squarely at the base of the tree. The Sunshine Boys is a Neil Simon play, with all the witty one-liners you would expect. There were plenty of laughs, and I didn't find the humor to be predictable. What always amazes me about plays is the way they seem to pass so quickly. A 2 ½ hour movie seems to last forever, but on stage, two people have a simple conversation and next thing you know, the play is over. I felt like I had sat through a 45 minute production as the curtain fell. Now that I think about it, our evening demonstrated the whims of public taste. The Blue Dog... Van Patten. By all rights, Frank Gorshin should have been the more successful of the two actors, and Malcolm Liepke should be a household name over George Rodrigue. But I have never been one to understand taste. Tuesday, January 15, 2002
I guess this will be our season of old-fashioned entertainment. Tomorrow we're going to see Frank Gorshin and Dick Van Patten do "The Sunshine Boys", and next month we're seeing a live performance of A Prairie Home Companion. "The Sunshine Boys" tickets were purchased at a fund-raising auction at the yacht club. I think we were the only ones who bid on them. No reflection on the act -- the bidding was dreadfully slow that night. No one was interested in bidding on much of anything.
Janice warned me not to back out as the performance drew near. That's what happened last time we bought tickets at a benefit auction. That time was for the Harlem Boys' Choir. Janice ended up taking a friend because I wasn't really interested. If memory serves, that was also the night of Shane's birthday party in 2000, so I had an excuse to beg off. Janice returned from the theater claiming that it was one of the best performances she'd ever seen. She says that every time I back out of a date. To this day she raves about the Russian ballet that I missed. For years we had season tickets to Community Concerts, but a person, especially a man, can only take so much culture before he's compelled to unfasten his pants and make inappropriate bodily noises. I think I needed to look at paintings or go to a play to keep me interested. The concerts all started to sound the same after a while. I'm actually interested in seeing Frank Gorshin. If you're my age you remember him as The Riddler from the Batman TV show. If you're younger, that's probably all you know about him. He was actually the Jim Carrey of his time, ironically enough, but without the success. He was very talented at things that just don't make you rich. We loved him back in the 60's, but he just seemed to fizzle quickly. Dick Van Patten... eh. He's as successful as he really needs to be. I'll let you know how the performance came off. Monday, January 14, 2002
Archives are back! I don't know what I did to lose them, but if you're new to this site, you might be interested in past posts.
I still don't think I've topped my very first post. Things like that just don't happen every day.
We had another interminable staff meeting last Friday. It went kind of like this:
The staff slowly dragged into the meeting room, clutching cups of coffee. The Program Specialist, Denetria Hawkins, was the facilitator today. She was immaculately dressed, a tell-tale sign that she no longer had to frequent the projects and trailer parks. She had a maroon zippered day planner, which never left her side. She'd be lost without it. A larger binder, which followed her to important meetings, contained the contents of every policy manual in the foster care system. This was her own creation. She condensed a bookshelf full of manuals into one binder by miniaturizing four pages at a time on the copy machine set at maximum reduction. In recent years, she has had to lay a plastic magnifying sheet over each page to make it readable. It was 8:15 a.m. Time to start the meeting. She never waited for stragglers. "I‘ve got good news. Something that will reduce paperwork a little bit." No one showed any enthusiasm. This was one of the most common of empty promises. "Starting immediately, it is no longer mandatory to submit form 38 part 2 to the Social Security Office for kids who meet DIFSA criteria." This nugget of good news was met by a room full of puzzled faces. "We've never filed anything with Social Security on DIFSA kids." Mary Wilkerson said, hoping it was true. "Well you can stop as of today." "I've never even heard of this. We don't even have form 38 part 2 in stock." "Well, last Fall we got a directive mandating that we report all DIFSA kids and any MIFSA kids born after July first, 1996 to Social Security. The Legal department at State Office postponed implementation until we could get a clearance on whether it was a violation of confidentiality. They decided that it is a violation and we are to stop immediately." "But we weren't doing it to begin with." Denetria let out an exaggerated sigh that seemed to say Why do I have to work with these halfwits? "People, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. This is a time saver. Just enjoy it." Around the room, everyone's eyes rolled in sequence as though they were doing the wave. "I've got a question." Pepper Benoit spoke up. Famous beater of dead horses. "If a kid meets DIFSA requirements, but not MIFSA, do we still submit the form." Another wave of eyes rolled. Denetria stifled another sigh. Her voice took on the tone of a kindergarten teacher. "All DIFSA kids are automatically MIFSA eligible. But, as I said, we can now stop sending the form." "But we've never sent the form in the first place." Mary said, speaking to thin air, not to Denetria. There was no point stating the obvious at unit meetings, but human nature is hard to resist. "Let's move on to the next agenda item. State Office Policy Memo 17-436 now forbids using state vehicles to transport clients to pay their utility bills. The sole exception will be during times of extreme hot or cold weather when children would be at risk. Under such circumstances, your Program Specialist's approval is required." Pepper couldn't resist. "If we're transporting a client for some other reason, and we're passing the utility company anyway, can we stop and let them pay their bill?" "I'll have to get a clearance on that from State Office." Denetria jotted a note in her day planner. This one question could cause a ripple of email that could last for weeks. Mary wanted in on the fun. "What if you're transporting two clients in the same van. One of them is approved to go to the utility company and the other isn't. Do we force the other one to stay in the van?" Denetria ignored the question. Pepper attacked from another angle. "Can't we use our own vehicle to take them to the utility company?" Everyone knew that Pepper would never allow a client to ride in her car. "I'll need to get a clearance on that." Denetria wrote another note to herself in the planner. "But can we use our own vehicles while we're waiting for the clearance?" "I'm not sure." Denetria was starting to lose the match. "I'll request clearance on that too." The system would soon be choked with email. Pepper was responsible for the bulk of bandwidth waste on the agency's network, though she never once used a computer. (Just kidding. This is actually a bit of my own fiction. But believe me, that's what my job is like.) Thursday, January 10, 2002
How many times in one lifetime can we say "now I've seen everything"? Go to Coincidence Design and tell me if you've ever seen a business quite like it.
A while back, I mentioned the Troubled Diva, whose blog is worth following. In case you don't remember (Lord knows you can't get to my archives these days), the Troubled Diva is a gay man in Nottingham, England who posts witty snippets of his life on his website. Some days you have to dig through a lot of fluff to get to the good stuff, but it's worth it.
Earlier this week, he announced that he'll celebrate his 40th birthday 40 days hence. In observance of this, he committed to post 40 daily blogs from his personal experiences. So far he's done only the first two, but they are worth the read, and worth checking in on for the next 38 days. Wednesday, January 09, 2002
I learned today that A Prairie Home Companion will be broadcasting live from New Orleans next month. As soon as I heard the news, I went to Ticketmaster to buy tickets. Apparently, everyone else learned about it sooner, because it was sold out. The girl at the counter told me that there was a second show the following day, and that tickets were still available. She didn't understand my confusion about this.
I explained. It's a radio show. It is broadcast live every SATURDAY. Why would they have Sunday tickets? She could offer no explanation, but I bought the tickets anyway ($115 with fees). I went to the PHC website and learned that indeed there is a second show that will not be broadcast. I'd rather the actual broadcast show, but still I'm looking forward to it. This picture was taken 21 years ago this week on January 11, 1981, just hours before the accident. That’s me in the middle. On the left is Calvin Bertrand. On the right is Barrett M. Slimmer, better known as Barry. Even better known as “Boomer”. Boomer had come to town from New Orleans for a visit, and by total coincidence Calvin had dropped in from Texas earlier the same week. I guess it was fate. We were frat brothers and troublemakers who had lost touch with each other, but were together again and anything could happen. Calvin was now living in Texas and brought his friend David (I think that was his name) along to meet his old buddies. When we went out together, we saw that Calvin had learned some bad habits (like he didn’t have enough to begin with) in Texas. He and David said they were going to demonstrate their “pragmatic survival” skills they had learned in the military. Boomer and I were intrigued by this concept. We all went into a supermarket. That’s when we learned that “pragmatic survival” was better known as shoplifting. I left the store, not wanting any part of it, but they continued until their clothes were full of prime steaks. They actually paid for the beer. Boomer drove a classic Mustang in those days -- 1966 or ’67 model. Boomer is one of those guys who thinks he’s always in control of a vehicle, no matter how recklessly he drives. I had been with him during spinouts and traffic stops before, so I knew what kind of driver he was. He was hot rodding down Kaliste Saloom Rd., a country road at that time, now a major thoroughfare. David had barely tolerated my slow driving all week, and started to egg Boomer on by saying things like “Finally. Somebody who’s not afraid to drive”. Boomer loved an audience, so he put the pedal to the metal. When we took the curve, I remember the sound of the tires on gravel. I knew we were going into the ditch. I have absolutely no memory of the accident itself. It probably lasted only three or four seconds. I don’t know if the car rolled once or several times, but it landed roof-to-sod. I don’t remember anyone else being in the car with me at that point. Maybe they got out before I realized what had happened, or maybe it’s just the 21 years that fogs the memory, but I’m pretty sure I was the last one to get out of the car. I should have stayed put, but I had seen enough movies to know that cars always explode after accidents like this. That was the first of two myths that were debunked that night. The second myth was that if a person’s neck is broken, he’ll either die or be paralyzed from the neck down. I wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t paralyzed, so I didn’t know to stay put. I actually managed to stand up, leaning on the car, but fell to the ground immediately. Boomer and Calvin were not injured, so they carried me into the home of the people whose yard we had just ruined. The lady of the house was bitching about not wanting blood on her floor while Boomer was leaning over me begging me not to tell the cops he was the driver. At the hospital the doctor told me that my neck was broken. “You mean a hairline fracture?” I asked. “Nope. It’s really broken.” The doctor said very matter-of-factly. The next day, my mother arrived. I told her that I felt okay, but had no feeling in my left leg. I’d been waiting all my life to use that joke. She didn’t think it was funny. When the orthotist arrived to fit me with a neck brace I could barely sit up. My neck didn’t hurt, but my back was killing me. It took a couple of days and two doctors to diagnose a broken back along with the broken neck. I could have made the diagnosis for them, but who listens? The orthotist returned with an extension for the brace. That contraption stayed on me for three months. If you see my college transcript, you can pinpoint the date of the accident by the conspicuous increase in grade point average (after my recovery, of course). But the major benefit of the accident was Janice. We had dated off and on, and I had never wanted a serious relationship, but Janice really showed how she felt about me during that time. She had the hospital put a rollaway bed in the room, and she stayed with me around the clock. I had to be spoon fed like a baby, and she was my little mommy. I knew I had a good thing and couldn’t let her get away. The rest is history. At our wedding, Boomer was our best man. Tuesday, January 08, 2002
In my quest to bring you entertaining websites, I give you le piano graphique
Shane has been insisting that I add music to this web page, so here you go. Today's tune: The Austin Powers Theme. Just reading the title makes the song pop into my head.
You too? Enjoy.
Lots of trouble posting these days. No loss. There's not much to say these days either. Monday, January 07, 2002
Another full weekend. Saturday we went to Mark's for dinner, along with several other TSBBers. Mark was eager to show off his well-timed fireplace which he recently completed (well timed because on most Louisiana winters he might not have had a chance to use it). I got a sneak peek at it a couple of weeks ago, and I'm pretty sure he hadn't had his first fire yet, so it was really new.
Mark says he's still mad at me for saying that Shane is responsible for my web traffic, so he doesn't visit here as often now (sorry, Mark). Sunday we went to Janice's mom's for dinner. Almost everyone was there. We had smoked turkey, compliments of Wilda and Al =>compliments of one of Wilda and Al's business contacts. It was almost like a holiday weekend. This has been a long holiday season. Next week we're going to Michel and Anna's for dinner. We haven't seen them throughout the holidays, so it will be our Christmas gathering a bit late. When Michel and Anna sent their Christmas card, they included nice studio pictures of their daughters. "Little" Ashley looks like a woman now (at age 15). I was shocked at that picture. She's turned into, in the parlance of out times, a hottie. Actually, I know better. I saw her a couple of months ago and she really is still a kid, but those studio pictures can be downright scary the way they'll mature a young girl. There have been times I've wanted to be a dad, but I don't envy parents of pretty popular teens. Pass the Maalox. Movie recommendations: We saw the new Planet of the Apes movie a week ago. Not bad, but the lead actor (whoever he was) was miscast. He didn't have star quality, and seemed a bit generic to us. He might have been better cast as one of the apes. The plot has a nice twist at the end (not the final scene, which went too far), which I won't divulge. I'd say it was moderately worth the rental. Friday we went to Wilda's to watch her favorite movie with them. She had just bought it. "Shirley Valentine" is basically a chick flick, but a good one. It's a British movie about a housewife seeking adventure. The adventure she found was very tame by Hollywood standards, but it wasn't a Hollywood movie. No big surprizes or action, but a good fun movie. I've seen a few others lately, but I'm no movie critic. I'm just killing time and bandwidth. We're expecting one more freeze this week, then temps should approach 70, then drop to moterate chillyness. Not fun. Friday, January 04, 2002
Janice's strategy for keeping pipes from freezing:
We don't get freezes all that often, so we don't have elaborate means of protecting pipes. Those of you from up north would be amused at Southern homes. Ours is raised about two feet off the ground with nothing but free-flowing air underneath (click my old-house link for a picture). When we do get a freeze, we put faucets dripping to keep them from bursting, but that won't keep them from freezing on a really cold night. The only thing that keeps them from freezing is having periodic high water flow. When a hard freeze is predicted, Janice waits until bedtime to put on a load of laundry. This gets water flowing without wasting any. But that only helps early in the night. To protect the pipes later into the morning, she sets the dishwasher on a time delay (a built-in feature on our machine), so it will start washing several hours after we go to bed. We never have frozen pipes. Wednesday, January 02, 2002
For the first time in a few years, it snowed in Lafayette. When I left my house in New Iberia this morning, there was no snow to be seen. The local weather said that the temperature was 34F, so I really didn't expect to see snow. By the time I got half way to Lafayette, the snow was everywhere. It was patchy, and you could see the grass through it, but it was snow.
I don't look at snow with the wonder that I once did. Honestly, it was the last thing I wanted to see. We don't have much in the South, but we do have warm winters as a rule, and I'm very happy about that. As I age, I become less and less tolerant of cold weather. I get chilled to the bone when temps drop below 40. This weekend I set up a table and chair in front of a fireplace and spent long hours drawing. I'm trying to keep up my art skills, and keep warm at the same time. We had been invited to Shane's for New Years' Eve celebrations. He had a pile of wood for a bon fire, but I was expecting to freeze to death. But with the fire, the long underwear, and the hot buttered rum, I was actually very comfortable. Shane had been collecting wooden pallets wherever he could find them. They make a good fire because the flames spread over the entire width of the pallet and air circulates around all the pieces. The down side is that each pallet disappears quickly and the fire must be fed constantly. Shane and his brothers-in-law pitched in to buy a box of fireworks. They bought the really nice ones and put on quite a show. We sat by the fire until around two in the morning, then headed home to set the alarm for eight A.M. to go to Janice's parents house for their annual New Year's meal. That's the tradition in their family. They don't try to compete with in-laws for Christmas Eve. There's always a packed house for New Year's Day. The weather is predicted to drop to the lower 20s in the next day or two, so I'll be spending a lot of time by the fire with my sketch pad. Sailing will be a distant dream, it seems. Sometimes January is an excellent time for sailing in Louisiana. Dag nabbit! I can't wait for Spring. Archives11/01/2001 - 12/01/2001 12/01/2001 - 01/01/2002 01/01/2002 - 02/01/2002 02/01/2002 - 03/01/2002 03/01/2002 - 04/01/2002 09/01/2002 - 10/01/2002 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 |
