In keeping with the river theme this week, you can go here to see a short videoscan of the Mississippi. It hit its high for this spring yesterday.

Lyman wanted something to show friends in Ohio and New York.

I guess I could have loosened that creaky tripod.

Major Davis has a fine Southern epitaph.

UPDATE: This stone makes me think of the other song I played on Memorial Day.

This picture was taken farther downstream, a piece down the road from the cemeteries. The river crested last week.

This is one view of the Mississippi River from the new section of the Natchez National Cemetery.

Had Charles not lived last year -- and there were times we thought he might not -- he wanted his ashes buried up here as close to the river as possible. And still does, when his time comes.

Wait a minute. We have a big stainless steel steam pan that Lyman uses for ribs which will work a lot better than those Hefty disposable casserole pans for assembly and transport.

It's Big Daddy's 90th birthday tomorrow. He doesn't like cake, so it's scratch banana pudding for all 25 residents at the assisted living center and whatever guests arrive.

Staff, too. Lyman's brother is bringing some pies.

UPDATE: Kitchen hand, the recipe I'll be using is a lot like this one.

How far ahead can I make banana pudding with baked meringue before serving? I'm serving 20 30 at 3 1 p.m. on Saturday.

It's a shame that I should have to ask this question about a Southern staple.

UPDATE: Vidalia good cook Dot Ware suggests assembling the pudding up to meringue the day before, then whipping up and baking the meringue on top in the morning. That's a plan.

A curried cauliflower side that will go into the "keepers" file:

1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 (10-oz.) packages fresh cauliflower florets
1 medium onion, chopped
3/4 teaspoon salt

Cook curry powder and red pepper in hot oil in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring often, 1 minute. Add cauliflower, onion, and salt, and cook, stirring constantly, 2 to 3 minutes or until onion is crisp-tender. Reduce heat to low; add 6 Tbsp. water. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, 8 to 10 minutes or just until cauliflower is tender.

Just a pretty song for Memorial Day:

I'm willing to eschew disposable shopping bags -- except for the few plastic ones that I reuse as liners in bathroom trash cans, or the big paper bags that we use in the truck for trash.

What I would prefer is the old-style European expanding string bag like, perhaps, these. As a retail clerk in the past, I'd prefer something that makes the management more comfortable than the canvas and other opaque bags that can conceal shoplifting.

I also don't want to pay a premium price for something that's "eco-friendly," or pay shipping for something that should come at the dollar store for about four bucks.

(Thanks, kitchen hand.)

The Internet wouldn't connect this morning, so I took some time to write a short letter to enclose with a card for my niece at Navy boot camp. Last night I couldn't think of a thing to say.

She had a bad go there for a bit when she developed tendonitis in her foot. She tells her mother that running in boots is killing.

Graduation is scheduled for June 5.

UPDATE: Far as I know, she's the first woman in the family to do military service. She's 24.

A vibrating mascara brush?

I rarely make it through a makeup session without having to dab away mistakes with a still one.

Dr. Alice has a fun little exercise up.

Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test...

English Genius

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Take The Commonly Confused Words Test at HelloQuizzy

All well and good, but there was no question regarding "lead" and "led."

Now there's a new one for me: Oppositional Defiant Disorder

From a Slate article on what successful women wanted to be when they grew up:

Judith Martin, Miss Manners

One day when I was a little girl with blonde ringlets, my father said, "I can picture you as an old lady, wearing high collars and a bun and tyrannizing over future generations."

And I thought to myself, "My daddy understands me."

I lifted this video from Ann Althouse:
Cat and parrot


Not a chance I'd take, but dear all the same.

Weagle.

(I've adopted this from Charlie. He says it out of the blue. It means he's still around but doesn't have much to say.

Oh, excuse me. That's Charles.

He never liked the diminutive.)

Lyman's mother sometimes gets chilly in her new environment where she can't run the thermostat up and down at will.

So I found a soft, pretty throw for Mother's Day in a pearl blue. She likes blues.

And a pretty, girly card.

Happy Mother's Day, Girl.

(Maybe my wicked stepmother's day present can be one in rust. Or that deep, deep red. Yes, the red.)

UPDATE: Had to settle for that cozy rust. Matches our patio table at the beach.

Happy Mother's Day to you moms out there.

And a story to warm you by the fire.

Now then, if you want perfect 4mm beads, the workers at Good Wood have them for you. Buy in lots of 25,000.

How do they do that? Make perfect 4mm beads, I mean.

This beading business is seductive. Yesterday at the craft store I saw some about 8mm tinily painted white beads that beg to be made into earrings.

No, Janis. No, no.

And if you have a need for beads, try eebeads.com. That's where I found the natural beads with no minimum order and no fuss.

Oddly enough, these beads for rosaries made the best match in blue.

The shells are coming from an eBay seller.

All for just over $15, which is cheaper than a trip to Baton Rouge.

UPDATE: eebeads just shipped.

Well, maybe Nancy's find wasn't such a good one after all. I still thank her profusely for the effort.

Trim India is an exporter. The minimum order I can make is 96.xx yards, and I must pay shipping from India. I could trim every pillow in the complex with that amount of fringe, and send some to all my readers for yours, too.

So, on my first day at home, a lazy one, I looked all over the Internets for proper wooden beads and shells. Let me tell you, hons, there are bazillions of both out there.

Then yesterday I visited our local craft store, which doesn't have the right beads, but had plenty that I could finger to determine the sizes I need. 6mm on the blues, and 4mm for the plains.

The shells are small Ark seashells, about 1/2 inch. Those are usually sold in bulk by weight or volume.

Might as well order.

Natchez has taken a weather beating during the past year or so. Here's the latest.

Time to go home. Never did swim.

UPDATE: And home again, home again, jiggety, jiggety, jiggety, jiggety jog.

Y'all, I cleaned this tabletop with LA Awesome cleaner earlier today, but it didn't do enough, so applied some Dollar General bathroom cleaner with bleach. It turned the top this mottled orange color.

What can I do?

UPDATE: I've talked to Jim at Werzalit, the maker of the tabletop. He's going to ask his tech guys and get back to me.

Target kept the same pattern, all right, but changed the quality of the flatware. The pieces to the left in each pair are the new stuff, on the right the old.

The new stuff has been hollowed out on the back to use less metal. Look closely at those salad forks.

Yo, mama. I have a new bestest friend. Nancy found this fringe. If I dye the middle beads, there won't be a nickel's worth of difference.

Whatever you want, sweet Nancy. "How did you do that," I asked. "I used to be a librarian. I know how to find things," she said. She hadn't seen the fringe. She worked on a description.

I'll take a couple of strands off the ends of the pillows to fill in the gaps, and hunky dory for the summer. Buy a couple yards for safekeeping.

Oh, a topic so I can toss this list.

Along 63, a mile or two from the intersection with I-10, is Heritage Funeral Home. It's a small building. On the front lawn, to the right of the building, is a selection of stone markers for graves.

Couldn't they put them somewhere else, as in behind and to the right? They aren't marking Aunt Tilda's grave there.

This Panasonic camera has a nice zoom. I took this photo from the balcony.

When Candy told me about the pillows she designed for the love seat, I thought, "Trouble on the seashore."

Those beads and shells beg to be tugged at, chewed on, and picked off.

So I went to the shop where she had the pillows made to find more trim. Nada. "It's an old trim that we won't be having anymore."

So it looks like a trip to Michaels in Pensacola for craft supplies this afternoon. If I can find the parts, it should be easy enough to add the missing strands. If I can find the parts.

UPDATE: The other thing I can do is clip them all off. The pillows won't look "bad" without them, just not as much fun.

I came in from shopping today desperate for a Bloody Mary, so I went across the street to Bubba's Seafood, and had a pretty darned good one.

They use a mix made and bottled here at Orange Beach -- this one. The bartender kicked it up a bit with a splash of Tabasco.

I picked up a cheap toaster today at Walmart that was hot enough to burn my finger when I touched the exterior while it was working. That goes back. It's plainly dangerous.

Toaster shopping might be hard. I want a trim, white two-slice toaster that won't take up much counter space. Most that I see are bulky.

I found some good plastic glasses today that I didn't have to spend six bucks apiece for, but the short glasses are broad for little hands. I might go to a dollar store to pick up a cheerful few for young'uns. We have regulars from Denham Springs, LA, with little ones.

Water glasses. The rental agency requires 1-1/2 times the number of guests (6) in the number of glasses.

We have 10 glasses, 3 of one set, 3 of another, and four that I don't recognize. I think I'll pop for a set of 6 8 nice plastic ones in both water and short sizes for the summer.

I have about 10 short/rocks/juice glasses of mixed heritage, too.

UPDATE: The toaster works, but looks pretty ratty. Replace.

Need more flatware. I hope Target still carries the same pattern. (Yeah, right.)

Baking sheets look dreadful. Replace.

Let's see: lamp finials, new lamp socket with working switch, try for a different cheap DVD player for the bedroom and leave the Memorex in the box to return to Office Depot, discard the DVD player in the living room that the snowbirds left in place after they took the one out of the bedroom when the one in the front room quit working, spot paint that nick in the bathroom and the blue in the hall, corners.

Call Chem-Dry to clean and and ScotchGuard the chair and sofa and...

pop a beer. Milwaukee's Best, if you must know.

On the good side, the man who has been working for us did a great job installing the HDTV (with DVD player) in the other bedroom on the wall and a brand new water heater, which could save a ton of misery not too many years hence. Money, too.

So that bedside drawer wasn't off-track after all. This vial was stuck behind it.

Hubba, hubba.

Nice day.

I did find the cap for the washing machine agitator in one of the lower kitchen cabinets. What it was doing there...

Okay, what happened to the lamp finial in the second bedroom?

Here's one with more background for you.

Possum, hon, I find your interest in swimsuits a little odd, but who am I to say? Here you are.

Do you want a pic of Lyman's, too?