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Okay, I promise this will be the last Jeopardy reference, at least until my prize check arrives, but come on, don't you want to read my article?!?!

Once

This weekend, the husband and I saw an absolutely amazing movie. "Once" is an Irish drama/musical. An Irish street musician meets a Czech immigrant who is also musical. The movie then follows their friendship/love through the creation of a CD. Rather than a story highlighted by music, it's music highlighted by story. It was stunningly simple and emotionally powerful. Go to the site and hear the beautiful music. Go to your nearest art movie theatre and see the film.

This means you, Rambling, a., Smitty, Dunces, even Diane if you're dropping in from Scotland!

Sing it, Al

I have been dying to post this for months:

"I Lost on Jeopardy" by Weird Al Yankovic

Thursday cometh

Okay, so since people insist on remembering, my Jeopardy appearance is this Thursday. There's even a video clip of me online, though it makes me squirm to see myself -- I talk too fast! My head is really big! Why didn't I smile?!

I also received my fabulous commemorative picture with Alex last week. Okay picture, though he looks kinda like a cutout and it was printed off a computer. And no, I didn't really get to talk to him. There's all kinds of legal stuff around that dating back to the big quiz show scandals of the 50s. He just sort of snuck up behind me, said "Come back out and show 'em no mercy," smiled for the picture, and moved on to the next contestant.

And by the way, my sister obviously won't be able to see this. Can someone tape it for me? I don't have the official remote for our VCR, so I can't set it to the right channel to tape. Thanks!

Bet you didn't know I was gone

We just got back from a week at my mom's house, probably the most relaxing vacation we've had as a family. We didn't really have an agenda of things to see, Brad forswore the computer, and Abigail was able to play by herself for a bit each day -- even, gasp!, going out into the yard alone as long as she let a grown up know. It was a good time in Bagdad. (Yes, that's where mom lives. It's also the home of Mary B's, those fabulous frozen biscuits.) We went shopping, ate good Mexican, ate even better off the grill most nights, visited the Naval Aviation Museum, and went to the beach a couple of times -- though it actually was a bit cool, go figure.

So, in good mommy form, a few pictures. First, an up-close encounter with a heron in Navarre. Second, Abigail taking out the bad guys at the museum. Third, feeding fish along the Blackwater River in Milton (the gulls were a no show).

Hip hip

Hooray! Smitty is getting married! Yaaay for Smitty!

Ooh, ooh, and I just bought the perfect dress for a Florida wedding! I had no specific purpose for buying said kick-ass dress, but I even said to Brad that it would be ideal for a warm weather wedding and that it was too bad no one I knew was getting married. Thank you, Smitty!

Our new addition

After seven and a half looooong weeks, we have a second car again. Brad now gets to play with a brand new Hyundai Sonata. And it's purdy. And it's stick, so Heather has a learning curve ...

Witness the new ride, followed by a side-by-side comparison of what he is now driving versus what he had been driving for three weeks.

Class of 2007

Abigail graduated from preschool today. It was a bit absurd, but oh, it was cute. Adorable, actually. The kids were so proud of themselves and well behaved -- and they loved their tassles. Abigail was a ham, of course, waving to everyone like the princess she is as she walked down the aisle of the church. They sang a few really cute songs about going to kindergarten, which I'd share if someone could tell me how to post videos ...

And so, onward to kindergarten! (with a quick three-week preschool "summer adventure" session thrown in next month ...)

Sorry about the picture quality -- dark church and we were way at the back even though I got there 25 minutes early. The second photo is with her grandparents.

Trail blazing

So, yeah, two weeks. I know, that's really awful. No good reasons. I'm addicted to a mommies forum, though I'm trying to cut back.

Anyway, today Abigail and I made our annual trip to Landsford Canal State Park. It was time for the rocky shoals spider lily, but mainly we went because it was a sunny, cool day, and Abigail's 4-year-old legs can handle the two-mile round trip without a piggy-back ride. We had a great time. She was even more aware of her surroundings this year, noticing frogs and strange bugs, listening to the sounds of the forest, talking about how "wonderous and beauty" the trail was. The lilies, which are stunning but grow out in the middle of the Catawba River, were a let down to her since she couldn't see them up close, but she loved playing in the sandy river bank and climbing on rocks in the middle of the river. It was a really great morning -- and then she took a big nap when we got home, an added bonus!

For your viewing pleasure, pictures:

Stealing

I'm stealing this from a., but given my collegiate history with Monty and the gang, I simply had to let everyone know about the record-breaking number of people clip-clopping with coconuts to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

No word on whether African or European swallows were used for the coconut transport.

"But they could grip it by the husk..."

By the way, if anyone can find this as a sound clip, I'd love you forever. :)

May I be struck with lightning if ...

Thursday night, while getting Abigail ready for bed, a tremendous BOOM shook our house. I could feel the concussion of the sound waves in my ears. I've never heard such loud thunder. Brad saw the flash of the lightning and said it was timed exactly with the boom, so we knew it had been close. Yeah, try the tree 50 yards from our townhouse.

The energy blew bits of bark and branches all the way back to the blue slide.

And up onto the porch in the background of the second picture.

The new leaves were burnt to a crisp still on the branch.

And the hole in the last picture was a root.

It's a small world after all

Abigail has returned from her week at Disney World with my in-laws, bubbling over with excitement at what she saw and proudly proclaiming herself a princess. I wish I could have seen some of the stories we heard, especially meeting Cinderella. I believe she had dinner with Cinderella, as well as the mice, the fairy godmother and the prince. What I loved: She asked Prince Charming to dance! Not following her mother's wall-flower ways!

The night after she came home, the Disney effect was still evident. She announced to us at dinner that: "Romantically big loud flushing toilets are scaaaaaarrrrryyyy!"

No Carolina sweetness

This weekend, it was colder in Charlotte than Fairbanks, Alaska.

The strawberries are gone. The peaches are gone. The mountain apples are gone. Not just the normal panic every spring from some small frost. Apparently, the crops are totally destroyed.

This is very, very sad. There is nothing better than a sweet South Carolina peach in the summertime.

Georgians, please let me know if there's any peachy hope left from your state!

ADJUSTED PROGNOSIS: Apparently, the strawberries weren't hit too badly. Small consolation.

The agony of 13

I just finished yet another excellent book by David Mitchell. "Black Swan Green" was a very convincing coming-of-age novel about a 13-year-old boy in Worcestershire. Mitchell never lost the adolescent voice but still managed to make some beautiful/poignant/amusing observations about nature and sexuality and finding yourself. Really very good. I still prefer "Cloud Atlas" -- and strenuously, highly recommend it -- but this was a very interesting read.

I find this funny

I have before mentioned some of the joys of living in a somewhat small town. There are even greater joys to be had living in a county that is still half rural. And one of them is County Councilman Curwood Chappell, our very own Boss Hogg.

Damn, that's a drawl! Or a drunken-sounding mumble! And the swearing at the end! That's priceless. Almost enough to make you want to be a county reporter. Almost.

UPDATE: And at the next meeting, Curwood apologized. Kinda.

The knights who say "Neh!"

Abigail has decided that she no longer says no. Or nope. When she wants to express herself in the negative, she says, "Neh." Part of me is quite delighted that she does this. The other part finds it a bit odd and wonders where she picked it up.

On another note, she is watching "Cars" for the first time. The pace is a bit slow for her, and she's totally not into the racing scenes, but her little friend Jacob talks about it all the time and she wants to see it. I personally think it's pretty funny, though a bit slow, and the animation is absolutely AMAZING. Wow, the things they can do with a 'puter.

Checking for a pulse

Yes, I am still here.

Last week, all my computer time was eaten up working on freelance articles. This week, well, this week we bade farewell to the Taurus after a rush-hour wreck. Not that we're really sad. It was a 10-year-old Ford that was starting to act up in many ways, and we'd already been seriously planning buying a new one. The time frame has been shortened and the trade-in value reduced, but that's okay. Thankfully, Brad wasn't hurt.

So anyway, yeah, still here. Still working on freelance stories, too, so I'll probably be silent a bit more. But I will say one more thing: POLLEN SUCKS! I don't normally have allergies, but this year is so out of control that even my nose is twitching constantly. It's so thick out there I feel like I can constantly taste it. There's rain in the forecast for tomorrow though, so they'd better be right!

Cheers to you, too, buddy

I'm writing some stories advancing our local, happy little spring festival. I just called a man in charge of one group of events, just to get a fluffy little quote, you know, promote his events. So I call the only number given to me by the festival office. He answers, I introduce myself and say why I'm calling and ask if this would be a good time to speak with him. Some kind of unintelligible, evil-sounding grumbling, then "What is this about? Who are you with?" I'm writing some stories about the festival for the local paper and was hoping to find out a little more about your events. "How did you get this number?!?!" Uh, I called the office. I'm sorry, is this not a good time? "No, it's not a good time. I have two people in my office! This is not a good time! Call me tomorrow if you have to, then I can talk to you allllll you want." Okay, sir, thank you very much! (she says cheerfully, mentally giving him the bird)

Come on, dude, not my fault. Tell your office not to give out your cell number. Or, gasp!, if you're that freakin' busy, just don't answer your phone. Get a life.

And get this, he's in charge of community events, as in, we all love each other so much, isn't our town wonderful! A bit miscast in that role, I think.

City of Angels

Before last week, the furthest west I'd ever been was San Antonio, and that was when I was 9. I've obviously seen lots of pictures, but it's very different seeing a totally different region of the country for myself.

We flew from Charlotte to Atlanta and then to Los Angeles, and when the clouds broke somewhere over southern Arizona or Utah, I was amazed. It was so brown. And there was no civilization. Not a glimmer from a house or car, not a single track through the dust. Of course, from 30,000 feet, dimensions are skewed, but it all looked so flat and dry, broken only by the carved edges of mesas. But even from above, I could see the striations of the rocks. A bit further on, rocky mountains jutted up from the desert floor -- no snow line, so scrub line, just rock and dust. I could even see the swirls of huge dust clouds kicking up over the valleys. I really need to go to the desert in person.

I really didn't see much in the way of people until we got near Palm Springs, Calif. Suddenly, there were perfectly straight lines of roads carved through the dust, complete with little glints of passing cars or isolated houses. Slowly the vegetation started to come back, but it was so different from the lush green of the Southeast. So scrubby, such a dry green. We approached what I'm guessing were the Santa Ana mountains (there was insipid TV on the inflight screens, not much more interesting directions), I saw snow dusting the tops of the mountains, as well as a blanket of clouds curling slowly over the peaks, as if it really were a solid fabric.

Then we crested the mountains, and there was L.A. I have never seen so much development. It was a quilt of gridded streets, houses packed together, and it went on for miles and miles and miles and miles until it ran out of room at the mountains. We flew over it for something like 45 minutes. I was overwhelmed. Sure, I lived in Chicago, but this was nuts. I have enough trouble finding my place in a little town like mine, I can't imagine how lost I'd be in that many millions.

The next day was our planned event. I don't want to risk talking about it, so if you want to know more, e-mail me. I will say it was fun overall, lots of nice people and an interesting thing to watch in production.

That evening, we went out to Santa Monica for the sunset, some wandering and some food. It was, obviously, gorgeous. And wild watching the sun set into the ocean in less than two minutes. (See that itty bitty tip of light in this picture? The last edge of the sun.) Even after the sun disappeared, the color was beautiful on the clouds and San Gabriel Mountains, especially seen through silhouetted palm trees.

I was fascinated by the flora: gnarled trees with little bark; droopy, fuzzy plants arcing a good three feet in the air; 10-foot tall shoots jutting up from some kind of succulent. And of course, there were the dinosaur topiary fountains in Third Street Promenade, but they weren't quite as impressive. Nor was the upscale shopping that I could have found at malls here in Charlotte. Nor was the grill we wound up eating appetizers at, but that wasn't too bad since we were so screwed up with time that we weren't hungry.

Thursday was wide open, and we decided to go to The Getty Center. Wow. Not the biggest or most impressive collection of art I've ever seen, but the building itself and its view of L.A. were amazing. As one of my many architects first pointed out, the entire complex is designed on a grid, and you can follow any gap in the limestone squares throughout the complex -- floors, windows, walls, stairs. Incredible attention to detail. And beautiful gardens and a wonderful walkway cutting across a man-made creek that was designed to have a different sound at each crossing.

I did have some favorite paintings: Jeanne Kefer by Fernand Khnopff and Houses near Orleans by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. We didn't make it to the vast photography collection, but hey, a reason to go back, right?

We finished off the day by yet again going to Santa Monica. We had talked about going to see the freak show at Venice Beach, but we were tired and just wanted to relax. We grabbed a beer at a pub, window shopped, caught another sunset, and shivered through the gale-force winds. We wound up the night at Lula Cocina Mexicana, which had great margaritas, awesome salsa verde, and decent food. Interestingly, they served cooked carrots marinated in vinegar with the chips and salsa, and this is apparently typically Mexican. Wonder why I've never seen it on the East Coast.

To get back to the hotel, we took yet another cab. We spent more money on cabs than food, though it was probably worth not having to drive on the freeways. Our cabbies were from Guatemala, New Jersey, somewhere Arab, Ethiopia, Eastern Europe and Morocco. You literally saw all kinds of people in L.A.

And voila, the next day we flew home. We were stuck on the plane for an hour at the gate in L.A., stuck another 45 minutes waiting for passengers in Atlanta, and didn't get home until 1 a.m. But it could have been worse: our flight from LAX was going on to Tel Aviv, another 11 hours after Atlanta!

So there you go, more than you ever wanted to know about my trip, except perhaps for the part I can't talk about. I definitely recommend a trip out there, even if, like us, you don't care about celebrities. And we definitely want to go back, though perhaps more like the central coast and wine country. Ahhhh, vacation.

Postcard

Santa Monica at sunset. More to come.