For the Thursday Three:

1) In 1996, Lyman's parents, his sister and her daughter, and the two of us joined about 20 other people from local churches for a trip to the Holy Land organized by the minister of the First Baptist Church, and conducted by Christian Tours USA.

In the Christian market in old Jerusalem, we bought a woven camel hair "imagination rug" of a Muslim village scene, which was likely made in Egypt. The seller told us to fold it up and keep it in the freezer for three or so days when we got home, to kill any bugs that might be hiding in it.

And so we did. It hangs behind our dining table today.


2) As the World Turns is the first television show I remember. Hard as she worked, my mother would take a break at midday to watch her stories.


3) Let's not talk about surgeries. I'm not that old yet.

I will say I'm mighty disappointed in my family this month. Shoot, my intestines are so tough they decided to go walkies on their own last summer.

I like pickles.

When we tried a new recipe for deviled eggs that called for a spicy sweet pickle, Lyman picked up the Ragin' Cajun brand, out of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

They are wonderfully crisp and hot and sweet. I like to snack on them, and intend to serve some at our next party.

Jeff Jarvis links to a blog that links to an Ananova report that Dolly Parton is having her breast implants removed and breasts reduced. Good for her. She's an awful small woman to be carrying those gazongas around.

But the part of Mr. Jarvis' post that I like is this:

Let me add that when I was a columnist in San Francisco, I met Dolly a few times covering concerts. And I knew a guy at the old UPI who went to high school with her. The honest-to-goodness truth is that she is that nice. She really is.

That's nice to know.

The jigsaw puzzles came while I was gone.

We looked at the pictures closely and decided to start with this one.

We draped the dining table with a clean white sheet and attached the swing-arm desk lamp.

I opened the box and began slowly dumping the pieces from the plastic bag into the box lid, sorting for edge pieces as I went. Lyman came along and insisted on dumping all the pieces into the box and doing a sort for color.

You know, different couples have different thresholds for certain tasks. There are endeavors that a couple should not attempt to undertake until the pair's abilities to work together, to act beyond recriminations and grudges, are well-established.

Throwing mutual dinner parties is among those, as are home improvements. Rearing children is one, and, I have learned, working large jigsaw puzzles is one.

So, I find it is well and good that ten strong years of hardship and plenty, disappointment and joy, mistake and rectification were behind us last night.

LittleA, after that sort, we estimate that 500 of 2000 pieces are a shade of purple.

Lyman tells me that Lucy did well in my absence until Thursday. She stopped eating, preening and making noise then. Such a mama's girl.

One of mama's responsibilities is the bath. Lucy will tolerate a bath from Lyman, but she prefers me for that task. We've settled on two a week. Birds need a good soaking with water occasionally to keep their feathers in good condition.

Lucy bathes in the kitchen sink, like all seven of my mother's babies. Hers is a shower under the sprayer, though.

We tend to bathe her at about 5 in the afternoon, after she's emerged from her afternoon rest and before she starts her evening feeding.

First, lay a quarter-folded sheet of newspaper on the counter to the left of my monitor and set her short table-top perch on top, in front of her White-Westinghouse personal fan heater (model WWFH1170, much like one of these).

Then wash the sink and stopper thoroughly with dish liquid and rinse well. Insert the stopper and lay a clean thick washcloth in the bottom of the sink so those delicate feet don't tangle with the stopper. Lay a clean white terry dishtowel out on the cutting board to the right of the sink. Make sure the under-cabinet lights are on.

Adjust a mild flow of water until it is lukewarm.

Take a bathroom break because of the running water.

Catch Lucy. Sometimes this is supremely easy, accomplished with a simple "step-up" command. Yesterday she gave me a good nip on the knuckle because she wasn't ready for a bath at that moment. If she's difficult, turn off the water and wait a few minutes. Lucy likes a bath, so yesterday's was an infrequent occurrence.

At the sink, turn on the sprayer and wet the washcloth in the sink, and set her down in the sink. Then start spraying, avoiding her eyes and nasal passages. I start at her feet, then move under her tail, around to her breast, then her wings, both over and under. Sometimes she'll run around in the water, spreading her wings so it's easy to wash her thoroughly. Sometimes she huddles in the corner, so I have to lift her wings to wash under them and turn her whole body around to get the other side. She rarely nips when I do this.

Once she's been completely soaked (except for those parts of her head) I turn off the water, and tell her to step up. When she's up, I ask if she'd like to flap a bit, then I tell her to step down at a certain spot on the dishtowel. When she's down, I flip the ends of the dishtowel over her, pick her up, and hold her close to blot excess water from her feathers. She stays in the towel for a few seconds then I unwrap her and set her on her playtree where she gives herself a good shake.

She looks like this after a bath.

If it's warm, I leave her there for a while. If not, I take her to the perch by my monitor where the little heater is set on medium. She'll preen and doze there until she is ready to go to her perch for a treat of seeds.

Other birds bathe differently. Some prefer a mist bottle, some like a pan of water, and some have perches in the family shower. But they all need that hydration for their feathers at least once a week.

How good men go bad, from Tony Woodlief.

Rest easy, pretty girl.

I saw one of these cars on the road yesterday. It was quite ugly.

If you'd like to follow Jeanne's progress from a local viewpoint, there are Florida stations available here. I have problems receiving them, but Lyman doesn't.

He gets all the good stuff.

Chucky is found!

On Tuesday we learned that the damage to the condo was not nearly as bad as we feared. All our windows held, as did most of the others in the complex. Pictures are here.

There will be no electricity there for about another month, and we are being asked to stay away and out of the paths of the restoration crews.

Just so long as I don't have to find a replacement for the bedspread that I shopped the south for, I'll be content.

When I drove up and walked onto the patio in Dallas, Patricia laid her head against me and cried. She felt ugly, violated and helpless.

First thing with her is to organize her thoughts. She goes round and round and finds herself overwhelmed. The lawn needed mowing. The lawnmower was in the garage. The automatic lifter for the garage door was broken. There were overdue bills to pay and no stamps. Her hair needed a trim (oh, vanity, thy name is woman).

We dispatched her daughter to find Ken, a neighbor two doors away. The Harley biker-organic gardener-Santa Claus model came right away, repaired the garage door by replacing a nut, and whipped through her lawn in just a few minutes. What a neighbor. He and his wife are moving to a new house this weekend.

Then we made lists of things to do and things to buy, and worked through it all as the week progressed. I lifted scissors to a woman's hair for the first time in 30 years - just a simple trim, which might have been better and easier if the scissors had been fit to cut something other than paper.

By Thursday, she felt good enough to blow her hair dry and apply makeup for a visit to the surgeon's office. He removed the sutures and told her she was doing great.

"If I'd known that, I would have felt better," she said.

He also told her that had she not been in such good general health that this episode could easily have killed her. He removed between two and four feet of intestine. She needn't worry about gaining weight in the future.

Bizarrely, my sister-in-law in Oregon called Thursday night to say that my oldest brother had emergency surgery for diverticulitis that day. Pretty much the same operation.

Where is my family's intestinal fortitude?

Hey, y'all.

That was the pis... most annoying drive ever. Hard rain on I-20 and rampant scattered showers on 49, intermittent little blasts so that you could neither turn the windshield wipers on nor turn them off.

When I stopped at the Eagle Truck Stop at the Carmel exit, down 49 a piece from Shreveport, I felt as though I'd gotten off a horse rather than out of a truck. Don't order the biscuits and gravy.

The leg between Alexandria and Vidalia was smooth as silk, though.

A sign for a hair salon in Pineville read "Totally Clips".

I'm off at 9 or so for that lovely, lengthy drive to Dallas, so I can baby my big sister for a few days. I'll return Thursday or Friday. In the meantime, I'll be out of touch. Patricia spends 8 hours a day in front of a monitor at her job, and cares not one whit about a computer at home.

Y'all have a good week. That includes you, Ms. Woods and Mr. Zimmerman.

A little information on how the storms are affecting bird migration here from the Huntsville Times.

Ahem, far as I know, Chuckie is still loose.

A poster at the al.com forum has set up another forum that is site-specific. Posters there are providing information on individual properties.

A pertinent article from the Mobile Register, regarding homes and businesses on the beach.

Dave Barry has a postcard from Florida here.

Tentative reports from Orange Beach say that Seaside is ok, which means that it is standing. Property inspectors will begin looking Monday to see if they need to call in structural engineers.

A closer look at the video makes us believe that the seaside windows held in the living room but not in the front bedroom, which is good news, as it goes.

We won't be visiting until after next week, though individual unit reports should come in next week.

I'll be off to Dallas Monday to tend to my sister, who will be recovering from surgery, for a few days.

I just lost a post. Testing.

Here is a link to a story in the Mobile Register about the Flora-Bama lounge. If you've never spent time in the area, it might be hard to grasp how strong an institution it is.

Chuckie is still loose.

Lucy is a good helper.

While we were viewing aerial shots, Lucy was singing and chatting and laughing from her cage. "What you doing, Lucy?" in her pretty sing-song voice. No way to be sad or afraid.

Thanks, Debra and Craig.

She's a good girl.

Here is a link to a little radio station originating in Foley, Alabama, WHEP.

Lyman just heard a conversation that he paraphrased to me:

CALLER: We have a little place with a few acres of pasture and some chicken houses.

HOST: What do you raise?

CALLER: We raise fire ants.

HOST: Really? You RAISE fire ants?

CALLER: Not by choice.

This station is not all corn. A lot of useful information is being traded there. I'll be listening tomorrow.

Chef Tony sends along this photo from NASA to round out the photo collection.

Here is a good gallery of photos from the storm.

UPDATE: This gallery is changing over time, keeping track of storm effects as it travels inland.

Here is aerial video from WWLTV in New Orleans. Seaside is at 47 seconds. This is very bad news for us. The good news, I guess, is that the building is still standing.

It was fun, heh, Possum?

Here was the building before last night.

We are not receiving the feed from NBC 15 now. They are reporting towers down here. News continues to circulate at the forum.

The Pensacola News Journal is a good source for Florida news.

And Chuckie, the 12-foot alligator, is still on the loose.

Continuing from below.

From the al.com forum regarding the ABC video:

Just saw it. East from 161 intersection across Perdido Pass Bridge. Most structures have damage. Many have significant damage. Many roofs fom houses and low-rise condo's gone. Upper floors of wooden construction condo's gone. Most roofs whose structure survived are missing shingles/tin/tiles and underlayment leaving interiors exposed to elements. Most high rise concrete construction condos have survived with not too massive damage. The beach road east past Ono Island bridge intersection appears to be impassable due to the road being washed away, palm trees, sand and debris in road. Some boats washed ashore. Boats in dry storage at Zeke's (or nearby) mostly in place, but the dry storage bldg's siding was peeled away from around them. Could not tell from video what the high water mark was.

Watching NBC 15 Mobile on the computer.

Yikes, unconfirmed reports from Orange Beach say that the Flora Bama, a bar and institution on the Florida-Alabama line, is gone. Updates say it has been severely damaged, not erased.

Parts of the beach highway are gone.

A construction crane at Phoenix IX was driven across the road.

Video shows 6 to 8 ft of water on Hwy 59. The reporter is standing near King Neptune's, about a mile and a half inland, and can go no closer to the shore. Coke machines and refrigerators are floating.

While many of the large animals were evacuated from the zoo in Gulf Shores, about a dozen alligators are loose. Hunters with shotguns are wading about looking for them. There's a 12-footer named "Chuckie" out there.

I took a shower, but Lyman tells me that the mayor of Gulf Shores spoke a few minutes ago. The city requests that no one go in for two or three days. They plan some aerial observations later this afternoon.

According to a poster at the Gulf Shores forum at al.com, the Baldwin Co. EMA said at a noon conference that 100 percent of condos have significant damage.

From the forum:

They (ABC) had a reporter drive down the coast line in Orange Beach(as discussed below) and he described everything he saw. He says the Phoenix condos are in relatively good shape. Some damage, but can be fixed. He said 90% of the condos had at least minor damage but many were actually collapsed to some extent. He says the road was severely damaged and it was down to one lane. A crane was toppled near one of the bridges where construction on a new complex was happening. Described the scene as a "war zone". Many roofs gone, of course. He expects it to be a few years before things are completely back to normal. They'll have video soon.

At 2:20 Fox reports that the search for Chuckie has been called off temporarily while workers transport other wildlife out of the area.

A poster reports that video of the beach road should be up shortly on ABC 33/40 in Birmingham. Others have asked that watchers make thorough as possible reports. There is a link to the station here but no live feed.

Enough. There will be destruction and death in the path of the hurricane.

Where do the gulls go that scare Lucy so?

How will these hurricanes affect the monarch migration?

Lyman's computer is connected to NBC 15 Mobile.

They just showed a brief interview at a high-school shelter with a woman pregnant with twins who is feeling contractions. The contractions are not regular yet. There is a paramedic available.

UPDATES

1:50 Tornado warnings in Gulf Breeze heading to Orange Beach. They think they've pinpointed a tornado just south of the Flora Bama. Nope, just a possible. Warnings expire at 2:30.

That cell skipped over to the water park and is heading northwest. That warning has expired now.

2:58 Sustained winds of 40 mph with gusts up to 65 mph in Gulf Shores. (I'm hearing more that makes me think these are too high.) Tornado warnings in Santa Rosa and Escambia County.

Locally, Lyman says Hwy 84, which is our main street, is streaming with cars coming from 61N out of Baton Rouge. We are here. A Louisiana state map here.

5:00 In Gulf Shores, West Beach Blvd. is washed out. Conditions deteriorating rapidly. Some building awnings being torn off. 15 to 20 foot waves. Waves washing under Fat Tuesday's. Boathouses at Orange Beach are starting to blow apart.

5:28 Two killed in a tornado in Panama City, FL.

A cherry-red convertible just drove into the driveway. A young man, Chad, came to the door asking about Jason.

Of course, Jason is in Baton Rouge, so we gave him phone numbers.

Chad came to spend a few days with his dad while the storm rages on the coast. He has a little gym in Destin and does some personal training.

Lyman said, "Little gym? Red convertible? Pretty girls on the beach? It's a hard job, but somebody's gotta do it."

Debra and Craig at J-Birds, just north of New Orleans, are preparing for Ivan.

And Mobile residents are battening down. Local plywood stocks were sent to Florida. That's rough.

But they're just ignorant southern white trash. What would be the loss?

I called my sister yesterday morning. She was in an emergency room. I tried to get her last night, and there was no answer.

I found her this evening in a room recovering from bowel surgery.

"I'm dying," she complained.

"Don't say that!" I said. "You don't mean that. Do you?"

She'll recover, but she'll be in the hospital for five or six days, then out of work for three or four weeks. She was pretty well out of it, so no more details.

UPDATE: She's making sense now. I will go to Dallas on Monday to stay a few days.

Now that's interesting.

If you pop over to Steven Taylor's site, you might find Google ads for professional forgery experts, as I did earlier today. There's an opportunity around every corner, isn't there?

Why, yes, we are watching hurricane Ivan with vested interest.

Last year in November we replaced the washer-dryer and installed drapes to put the finishing touches on the three-year renovation of a fifth floor condo on the beach at Orange Beach.

Therefore, I predict that Ivan will accelerate to a heretofore unknown category 6, and will strike the coast a bit to the west for maximum devastating effect on Perdido Beach Blvd.

UPDATE: Time to re-read John D. MacDonald's Condominium.

And thanks, honey. We love you, too.

This was the hymn, sung on the Pearl River.

A lovely little service in a lovely little park in a supportive little town, for a woman I wanted to see more of.

However, I can go the rest of my life without another half-assed explication of the King James version of the 23rd Psalm, one of the prettiest and strongest pieces of poetry in the language.

Couldn't they just read it?

On Sunday afternoon, we drive to Monticello, MS, to attend a memorial service for a 60-year-old woman friend who served us dinner twice on Father's Day weekend.

She didn't appear ill then. She died of cancer yesterday morning.

Send good wishes to Frank. He lost his favorite girl.

Live with someone for 24 hours a day for ten years and there are still things you don't know. Lyman likes jigsaw puzzles.

I'm measuring tables and he's online looking for something interesting to work. He's looking here for something in the 2000-3000 piece range.

Poor Lucy will go crazy. Or we will. We both dislike the missing piece.

UPDATE: We ordered this one and this one. If we like them, we'll order this one. Too bad we don't have room for this one.

For the Thursday Three the topic is toys:

1) When I was two, I ran from behind an ice cream truck and was hit by a car. My aunt Evelyn brought a little pink and yellow stuffed dog to the hospital. That is in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers in the guest room.

2) I didn't have a favorite toy, but I spent hours over jigsaw puzzles as a child. Once, when we didn't have a new one, I flipped all the pieces on an old one and worked it by shape alone. Why don't I have one in the house right now?

3) I craved a Tiny Thumbelina so much when I was about five that I dreamed one night that I reached into the TV and brought one out. Never got the Thumbelina, but I can reach right through this screen to talk to you. Amazing.

UPDATE: Another toy I liked as a child was the little plastic car that you wound up with a rubber band and crashed into pieces against the wall. Wonder where that came from?

From Smiley Anders' column in The Baton Rouge Advocate:

Fear factor: LeRoy tells this weather-related story:

One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm, a mother was tucking her son into bed.

She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, "Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?"

The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug.

"I can't, dear," she said. "I have to sleep in Daddy's room."

A long silence was broken at last by his shaky little voice: "The big sissy."

She chased me!

Lucy likes to spend time with us in the kitchen. Cleaning out the dishwasher is one of her chores. She loves the flash and glint of glass and flatware and all those mysterious cabinets and drawers. We usually clear off the island so she has a safe platform to watch what is going on around her. (For a well-bred southern girl, she has an unseemly fascination with the trash drawer at the end of it.)

Tonight, she was on my shoulder helping wash pots and pans. I took a turn, and she either lost her footing or flew down intentionally. She also loves the kitchen floor. All those little toe spaces and corners are too intriguing, and probably the least sanitary spaces in the house. A carpet in front of the sink and one in front of the stove, put there to ease feet and legs on our concrete foundation, don't get cleaned often enough. She knows I don't like her down there, and will fight rather than step up.

Having tussled with her before, I decided to leave her there, and pick her up when she became bored. I was continuing with chores when the little snot lunged at my thonged feet!

Lucy is not a large bird, but her beak can pulverize a crab claw. I moved away until she could occupy herself. When I returned, she lunged again. And again. My beautiful little bird chased me out of the kitchen so she could satisfy her curiosity.

"Fine," I said. "I'm going back to the office."

After poking around a while, she came waddling back the forty feet to my chair and stepped up pretty as you please.

We received a flyer from a local candidate today whose wife is named "Cantina".

You need to read this story for the full context for this quote:

And then there was the husband and wife who brought in their Shar-Pei to discuss the neutering options. The woman relented only after learning of the Neuticles silicone replacements.

"Oh," she said, "those will be as natural as my breast implants!"

I have nothing to add.

Since somebody done brought up chicken and sausage, and the calendar has rolled over to September, it is time to post Chef Tony von Krag's recipe for

CHICKEN and SAUSAGE GUMBO

Perhaps the simplest of the gumbos, but a hearty one and a classic combination. If you can't find andouille, use a local hot smoked sausage or kielbasa or whatever smoked sausage you like. This one's easy to knock off quickly for a great evening's meal and is even better the next day.

1 cup oil
1 cup flour
2 large onions, chopped
2 bell peppers, chopped
4 ribs celery, chopped
4 tbs chopped garlic (I like garlic, reduce if you want)
4 quarts chicken stock
2 bay leaves
Lyman says 5 or 6
2 teaspoons Creole seasoning, or to taste
Lyman suggests reserving this until late in cooking, salting the gumbo to taste with the Creole seasoning.
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 teaspoon Tabasco
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Lyman would leave this salt out.
1 large chicken @ 4 1/2# (young hen preferred), cut into pieces
3 pounds andouille or smoked sausage, cut into 1/2" pieces
1 bunch scallions (green onions), tops only, chopped
2/3 cup fresh chopped parsley
Filé powder to taste

Season the chicken with salt, pepper and Creole seasoning and brown quickly. Brown the sausage, pour off fat and reserve meats.

In a large, heavy pot, heat the oil and cook the flour in the oil over medium to high heat (depending on your roux-making skill), stirring constantly, until the roux reaches a dark reddish-brown color, almost the color of coffee or milk chocolate for a Cajun-style roux. If you want to save time, or prefer a more New Orleans-style roux, cook it to a medium, peanut-butter color, over lower heat if you're nervous about burning it.

Add the vegetables and stir quickly. This cooks the vegetables and also stops the roux from cooking further. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, for about 4 minutes. Lyman cooks them until they're well-wilted.

Add the stock, seasonings, chicken and sausage. Bring to a boil, then cook for about one hour, skimming fat off the top as needed. If you're adding okra, add it about 20 minutes into this step.

Add the chopped scallion tops and parsley, and heat for 5 minutes.
Serve over rice in large shallow bowls. That file can be sprinkled on the gumbo here. Accompany with a good beer and lots of hot, crispy French bread.

YIELD: About 12 entrée-sized servings.

Lyman's is much like this. He'll look it over and suggest alternatives later. I know he'll suggest at least 5 bay leaves.

Lyman's revisions in italics.

Chef Tony, he wonders about 4 quarts of stock. That is a lot.

Mr. Schranck, that looks like a chicken and sausage etouffee to me, except for the basil. Ok, etouffee Italian.

UPDATE: Did he call me a skunk?!

Rather than get all flustered by Zell Miller's speech, why don't the Democrats use to advantage their built-in counter, John Edwards?

He has the accent, he's younger, better looking, and a successful trial lawyer. Who better to cast oil upon the seething waters and bring voters to sweet reason?

Taking a phrase from the cited article by Harold Meyerson, he could say this:

We Democrats need not resort (strike that) descend to malice or mendacity (great southern phrase, that) in this great contest.

Indeed, we seek to mend what is torn, to heal what is wounded and soothe what is sore in our republic.

Our president on Thursday referred to Ecclesiastes 3:1. Yes, to everything there is a season. We have had a long season of great upheaval, death and trauma. Currently, we are in a season of trial and disappointment.

John Kerry can bring a new season to this country. He will ...

Sure, it needs work. It's a lot better than "He hit me!"

Mickey Kaus said at the outset of this campaign that the Democrats could win by thanking the current administration for their efforts during a traumatic time for the country and offering a perspective from outside the eye of the hurricane.

They're not doing a good job of it.

UPDATE: Is John Edwards, like, a token southerner in that campaign?

I don't know why we don't hear of more stories like this from the campaign trail, about candidates, handlers and the press:

Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, was treated and released at Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa Saturday night after becoming ill during a campaign stop here earlier in the day.

Those are endless days of travel, noise, food on the run, standing, smiling, greeting, press and heckling.

I've traveled a bit. I'd be a stinking, bloated mass of digestive discomfort, swollen and sore feet, aching back, neck tension and headaches. I'd pick up every little bug from every snot-nosed child everywhere. My temper would be hair-trigger and my face would be sore. And I'm younger than a lot of people on the trail.

Shove it, indeed.

"Lyman, honey, will you bring me another milk punch, please?"

Lucy is still willing to stand as the Ole Miss mascot with proper compensation in snacks and due consideration for her bedtime.

This girl is not Lucy, but close enough for the purpose. Hey, Matilda.

Yes, yes, it's football season. Who cares?

This story from The Advocate is the most interesting thing I've seen for a while:

Among the soda bottles and lost basketballs floating down the Vermilion River, there are things much odder and mysterious.
The Vermilion River could be called a one-way hoodoo highway.

Over the years, more than four dozen ordinary, little brown plastic prescription bottles have been found in the murky water -- each filled with blue or pink powder and strange, rambling spells meticulously written on scraps of paper.

Bottle? Check. Powder? Purple or gold. Check. Offensive plan? Check.

UPDATE: Here at halftime on Saturday evening, I think Saban might like to change a spell or two.

Before things get totally out of hand, read this story from the Washington Post that better explains some of Kerry's statements and votes.

I don't care for Kerry, but it won't hurt me to be fair.

UPDATE: Gary Farber has more here.

I watched what MSNBC showed of Kerry's response to the convention from Springfield, Ohio. He looked pretty good.

I thought the Republican Convention could have used less of September 11. But it does no good for me when John Kerry says "Four years ago, Bush said x."

Four years ago, I thought I might have dinner at the World Trade Center one day.

Pataki was duller than I thought he might be, though I haven't seen him speak before.

George Bush looked good. Am I just imagining that part of that speech was written for Al Jazeera TV? Will they air it?

Hatebeak, death-metal parrot - "You can run, but you cannot fly":

When he isn't recording, Waldo enjoys whistling the Andy Griffith theme song and mimicking a ringing telephone.

(Link via J-Birds)

Michael Gerson better have something wonderful on tap.

I have not liked evangelical political speeches since Martin Luther King was killed. He did it well, and with authority.

Zell Miller's speech went over the top. The Republican Convention crossed the bounds. Foot-stomping partisanship is something I don't like.

Cheney was his quiet, grandfatherly self.

UPDATE: Miller's speech was good theater. But this story from the Washington Post lays out some facts that would refute some of his statements. (I repeated the pointer to this story up top.)

Arnold Schwarzenegger looked like the cat that ate the canary in that venue. A competent speech from a, hmmm, solid person. "Don't be economic girly-men."

Laura Bush has grown since the last campaign. Very pretty, erect and confident.

The Kerry girls appeared a real credit to their parents. These Bush girls are giggly, their clothes are inappropriate for the venue, their material is terrible, and the impression they are making is embarrassing.

UPDATE: I've read "But they're just 22." Right. College graduates.

Obama was an inspiring speaker, Clinton is an excellent speaker, John McCain is a man I'll closely listen to, but Rudy Giuliani is the man I want to dance with.

All right, all right. I have a weakness for Italians.

Lucy is one ticked-off little biddy.

She had her beak and toenails trimmed today. You'd have thought they were preparing her for dinner.

If she were quiet and cooperative, the whole process might take four minutes, if they were being extra careful. What with all the screeching and battle and rests, the whole lot of us are worn out when it's done.

I told the vet that if she were a good-looking 20-to-30-year-old man it would be a lot easier. That's Lucy's type.

Where did she learn that?

Lyman came in yesterday with a cucuzza squash. I would never have imagined that Louisiana has the largest farm of that kind in the world. Hype, maybe, though it could be true.

Bloomberg, Giuliani and McCain speak tonight at the convention. Wading through Google-ups I can't find the schedule for all the protest info. Does someone know the approximate time these gentlemen will be speaking?

It was much easier to track the DNC.

Fine. Many men would like nothing better. Now whatcha gonna do, honey?

(Girl's in the wrong city. She should move to Los Angeles. She'd be well on the road to her dream there.)

Kitchen Hand in Melbourne, Australia, has a post here that combines possums and parrots, so how can I not link?

He cooks and gardens, among things. I check there frequently for his recipes, though I don't have a clue as to where I'd find skate. These mussels frustrate me no end.

His site slipped onto my blogroll there on the left a short while ago.

A 4-foot pet monitor is loose in town:

Neighbors suspect the lizard is what ate two new roosters a resident on Camellia bought recently.

"He got two brand-new roosters," neighbor Michelle Bumgarner said. "They didn't even get to crow the next morning."

The old mattress on the guest bed was a cotton mattress, covered in blue ticking, with a roll and roping at the edges. The springs were covered in blue ticking with roping. When were sets like that last made?

The bed, end tables and chest of drawers date from the forties.

The new Bemco bedding arrived today for the guest room.

I inherited an odd-sized lovely four-poster bed when we married. The mattress size is 51 x 75 inches (well, 50 7/8), not on the showroom floor. We measured the top of the box spring, and ordered the set custom-made at considerable expense, to us, anyway.

The poor fellows who delivered the set couldn't get the springs in for anything, even after removing the little plastic corners.

"Stand the mattress up in the room and go on, we'll handle it."

The size was only a smidgen off, so Lyman and I paired up and plonked our hineys on each of the corners to set the springs. It worked.

Then we placed the mattress. It is not a pillow-top. The crown of the mattress is 32 inches off the floor.

I guess we'll pretend to have a big house and have the carpenter build a step.

My gosh, that sure looks high.

The moral of the story is to always measure the springs at the bottom, especially if you're measuring bedding fifty years old. I'd like to say also measure the depth of the bedding, but we didn't have a lot of choices, so do the best with what you can. The old mattress had to go.

Continuing the theme of teenagers and birds, and adolescent birds, Lucy's relationship with the telephone has taken a step. Now she says "hello" after we have punched a number in.

Since she has "What you doing?" down pat, she only has to learn "Nothing, what you doing?" to be able to communicate just as Lyman's boys did at a comparable developmental level.

Next comes "You want to do something later?" followed by "I don't know. Do you?"

Serious local trouble here. Reaction here.

This bears close watching. Four or five shots?

UPDATE: Here is another story from the local weekly, the Concordia Sentinel, with more details.

UPDATE II: The promised rally here.

Another phrase for when I feel exhausted and blue:

"I feel like I've been whipped with a dead snake."

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Geez, I never thought I could feel sorry for a cockroach.

The house next door is an attractive two-story, modeled after a New Orleans townhouse (the Thomas Toby house, now known as the Toby-Westfeldt house, first house built in the Garden District, 1838. Can't find a good picture). At 4 the other morning, alarms began screaming and talking, and fire trucks and police cars arrived in front of it. They were there for some while.

Lyman talked to the owners later. It was a false fire alarm. It is a beam-based alarm that goes into fits when smoke or other particles block the beam. Firemen examined the house thoroughly and found no trace of smoke or fire.

They finally resolved that the alarm must have been set off by harvest dust.

Just another quiet night in rural America.

UPDATE: Interesting note here on Thomas Toby's association with Texas.

Boudreaux's Butt Paste has gone big time:

On the NASCAR Busch circuit, Boudreaux is one of several sponsors of Crosby, a middle school principal in Slidell, La., and longtime driver of just about any type of vehicle that can reach unholy speeds.


Last year at Talledega, Ala., Crosby's "butt car" gained as much attention as the eventual winner of the race. Considering that millions watch racing, Crosby and Boudreaux have been inundated with variations of "Butt Paste? What's that?"


"It's a joke at the track that if you put it on the rear end of the car, it'll go faster," Crosby said.

Lucy seems to like the word 'apple'.

Every time I give her food, I pronounce its name carefully. She hasn't picked up 'corn' or 'pepper' or 'bean'. Just 'apple'.

When she goes on one of her vocalizing streaks where she experiments with her voice with all kinds of sounds, from high-pitched chirps and screams to belly-growls, she always plays for a while with 'apple'. She prolongs the syllables and plays with the p's in her throat. It's interesting and odd, evocative of Eve and learning to read.

Do all teenagers say "hunh" when you ask them a question?

"Lucy, what are you doing there?"

"Hunh?"

Hers is a pretty "hunh", drawled as you might expect from a young Vivian Leigh.

I do like a compliment.

When we worked on the great room, after much comparison and thought, we decided on native willow for the fireplace facade and the nine-foot bookcase.

Our carpenter selected and planed the wood himself, and created raised panels for both. I finished them in linseed oil, with all the concomitant work - sanding, wiping, finishing, four times over.

Today, when he came by to pick up experimental ribs from the smoker, he checked the finish. "It might be time to put another coat on."

"You'll have to keep Lucy. That means more sanding and mineral spirits."

"No, you don't need to sand. This is nearly gun-stock smooth."

Nice. He's still wrong.

This story threw me for a loop. Here are the passages I find interesting:

[...] When Mike Johnson, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, which represents conservative politicians and "pro-family" organizations, called Rawls a "homosexual," Rawls charged at Johnson. Rawls' voice rose and his face turned red, and he approached Johnson, pointed his finger at him and labeled him a "homophobe."

"I am not a homosexual," Rawls angrily told Johnson. "I am a gay man."

Rawls considers the term "homosexual" derogatory. "No one calls me the 'h' word," he said later.

[...] "He just went nuts. I was shocked by it," Johnson said of the courtroom encounter. "He lunged at me because I used the word 'homosexual.' I thought that was an appropriate term, I didn't know it was derogatory."

The encounter took those in the courtroom by surprise and highlighted the fervor the gay marriage issue has ignited.

"Just as I would expect no African-American to sit silently when he or she is insulted, nor would I expect any woman to stand by silently while she is insulted, nor any other group that traditionally has been denigrated by language," Rawls said in defense of his courtroom outburst. [...]

When did the term 'homosexual' become derogatory? 'Homo' has never been a neutral word, but 'homosexual' is a descriptive term, like its siblings 'heterosexual', 'bisexual' and 'asexual', isn't it?

(For the record, I am against such a ban being written into the Louisiana constitution. And I think gays should stop pushing the loaded word 'marriage'. I was joined with my husband in a city judge's law library with a secretary as a witness, a civil union if ever there was one. Many sects would not consider us married in any sacred sense.)

UPDATE: Maybe it's going the way of 'negro'?

UPDATE II: Since I received no other response, I called my local authority, my gay brother. He sees nothing wrong with the use of 'homosexual', since it has been used for a couple of thousand years as opposed to 'gay', which sprang up about 30 years ago.

UPDATE III: See Sean Kinsell's take here.

Poor dumb baby squirrel.

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When the grandfather clock strikes nine in this household, it is time to put Lucy to bed.

Wipe the top of the cage and perches with Lucy chasing the cloth, clean the dishes and wash and refill the water bottle, change the newspaper in the bottom every other day, and add pellets to the 24 hour snack dish.

Put Lucy on my shoulder, lower the pleated blind behind her cage, turn off the Lucy light - a floor lamp that stands next to her cage (with a personally decorated linen shade in cranberry and pomegranate, very nice with the walls) - and get a goodnight kiss.

Lyman is usually in his office chair. "Time to go nite-nite, Lucy. Can you give Lyman a kiss?"

Sometimes it works for him. Sometimes it doesn't. Lately, she has taken to faking yawns right in his face. Then she turns to me, gives me a kiss, and into the cage she goes, to the highest perch, without a single bonk.

"Nite-nite, Lucy."

"Nite-nite."

Lyman's first employer gave him a bit of advice that holds in any situation, up and down the line, as employer or employee: "Never keep your money and your honey in the same pocket."

Well. I think the scandal surrounding Governor Jim McGreevey of New Jersey is evidence of either a worldwide Zionist conspiracy or exceedingly bad judgment in pissy queens. We'll see.

UPDATE: Seriously, more facts need to come out before many judgments are made. Gay activists might like to reserve some of their energies recently spent lauding Gov. McGreevey's "coming out" for condemning him if Cipel's allegations are true.

I doubt that lawyer Lovy's assertions that Cipel is heterosexual will prove true. In any case, you could have a powerful governor threatening Cipel's jobs if he doesn't perform according to the gov's desires, and that is ugly stuff in any sexual context.

Yes, there's the argument that Cipel might have obtained a job outside the realm of the governor's patronage to get out from under his thumb. That still wouldn't make harassment charges less true.

Just keep a little powder dry, I say. Homosexuals have a right to say "no", too. Don't they?

Ooooooh. I like shiny things.

The, ummm, posterior has been a little sore today, having to do with reduction of lead levels in the home.

Lyman found mondo grass on sale at Carter's Nursery. He brought home thirty 6" pots. We divided 22 of those in half, and some of those again to plant around an oak in the front yard.

Bend and stretch, bend and stretch. I need more exercise.

Alice Cooper's python swallowed a heating pad. I like this statement from the surgeon:

"That's an outrageous X-ray," Jacobs said Thursday, looking at the pre-op picture of the snake that showed the wires and contacts from the heating pad - plus a rodent. "It's probably the most astonishing X-ray I've taken in my career."

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Click here to see a picture of Lucy as a full-feathered fledgling.

Little Lucy is just whipped. Dislocation from her home on Thursday afternoon was followed by an unanticipated visit from her big brother and a lady companion that only ended this morning. Disruption, disruption, disruption.

Lucy needs a nap.

Lyman was wrong. The weather was ideal today. It was sunny, about 85 degrees with a breeze.

Lucy is a pretty good girl. She's mainly obedient, but she does disagree with our actions at times.

Yesterday, she went to stay with friends while we ran the self-clean feature on the oven, which raises all kinds of nasty fumes, and Bug Busters came to work on our ongoing problem with sugar ants. (The new iron is fine. Hasn't been used yet.) Because they have a cat, they put her travel cage on top of a stool in front of a window in a bedroom and shut the door.

Miss Priss doesn't take too kindly to being away from the center of activity. When they checked on her she would stomp around the cage and bonk her beak against the walls.

Beak-bonking is her favorite way of expressing displeasure. Don't want to step up? Bonk the perch or the floor. Ticked because interesting things are going on outside and you're not? Bonk the window. Mad because Janis puts you in the cage at midday? Bonk the walls.

She'll obey, but she doesn't have to like it. Bonk.

This post is one of the reasons I love the Internet. I'll be looking for one of those toothbrushes.

We're watching HGTV. "Re-run," I say. "Everything is a re-run these days. Looks like the weather is a re-run," he says.

Mike Hollihan has further observations on lack of southern hospitality to the Iraqi delegation here.

You know, of course, this episode just validates Lyman's view that Tennessee is not really a part of the south.

Larry Anderson hosts the Thursday Three this week. He asks:

1) Can you name three good things about southern weather in August?

Okra grows well.
Grass grows slowly.
Shade trees grow more valuable.

2) What do you consider to be the best time weather-wise to be a southerner?

The light in October is best, but I always feel best in November.

3) Who is the most manic weather person tornado-wise?

I can't say. Our "local" stations are 80 miles away.

The kids at Duncan Black's site are silly over this article.

I don't like to play with the big boys, but an intervention is in order. Who knows more about Memphis stuff than the Axis of Weevil's own Mike Hollihan?

I e-mailed Mr. Hollihan, who is a gracious respondent. He allows me to reprint any part of his mail. He writes:

[The original article is] this story(register if you will, not much different) from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, our daily paper. [...]

As best I can puzzle it out, the folks who set this visit up didn't do a good job of communication. There appear to have been a lot of crossed wires and missed messages involved. It seems that the City Council President, Joe Brown (BTW, he's the former Judge Joe Brown of television court show fame!), was called when the Iraqis showed up at City Hall for their tour and he had no idea what was going on. Given that a heightened terror alert had gone out over the weekend, he predictably over-reacted. Our local government takes their personal security very seriously, as you can see.

Originally, the City Mayor's office claimed that no written requests had been made to them; the Mayor has since issued an apology to the Iraqis. The County Mayor ended up meeting with the Iraqis at our local Civic Center with City Councilwoman Carol Chumney, who was either spearheading the visit or jumping on the publicity bandwagon after the trouble surfaced; it's hard to tell. The Councilwoman has a record of publicity hogging.

By the time everyone had the story straight, it was too late and the
word was out that we had "snubbed" the Iraqis. I guess in a manner of
speaking we did, but it was also poor planning and execution, too. And a bit of grand-standing by Joe Brown and Carol Chumney. But they did get to meet with some City and County officials, so it wasn't a total loss. Just a bad show to the Iraqis.

However, the story took another turn when two of the delegates were
robbed on Beale Street! You can read stories here and here.

They were walking along in the "blues tourist district" when a local
pulled a gun on them and robbed them. This story isn't getting quite as
much play as the snub story because it will affect tourist dollars, but
it's actually worse than the snub since it confirms the repeatedly
denied stories about crime in that big-dollar tourist area.

So, even though we're getting pasted by the nation as racist yokels,
it's a more benign and more commonplace story than that. Grandstanding,
posturing politicians; too many overlapping political activities (John
Edwards spoke here today) not well coordinated; and a not-surprising
Memphis crime event were the basics of the story. Had the delegation not
been Iraqi goodwill ambassadors learning about democracy, it wouldn't
have rated much of a mention, if at all. We'd still look like idiots,
just not to the nation.

That won't cool much heat, but at least it's from someone there.

UPDATE: Read comments here for more from Mr. Hollihan on the Memphis City Council.

How do you discipline boys like these? Without going to jail yourself?

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What a pitiful, pitiful year for tomatoes we are having. It's hard to say what is wrong, apart from the heavy rains for a while.

Lyman accuses the pecan tree next door of casting too long a shadow over his garden plot. With the agreement of the neighbor, that will be removed this week, too late for much help this season.

I was hoping to can this year. Home-canned tomatoes in winter soups, stews and pastas are hard to beat. They're good gifts, too.

When I married Lyman, I didn't know the first thing about canning. A retired USAF officer, since deceased, taught me how. He was best friend to my father-in-law. He and Lyman used to compete and trade tips on growing tomatoes.

One year when the crop started coming in at a pace, he called me in the morning and said "Get ready. I'm bringing my equipment." He brought his pressure canner, funnel and tongs. I had laid in the jars, lids, lemons and salt. We worked together until the lids were ready to pop. "I'm going home to get a shower. I usually sit down, open a beer and listen."

We had taken a flat of tomatoes from his garden to share with my family for Thanksgiving in Dallas when Big Daddy called to say he had died after cancer surgery. Miss him still.

Lyman's stuffing wasn't much to crow about, just a variation of dirty rice, but he did a fine job of deboning the chicken.

It baked into a moist, pretty bird that would add a little glamor to a dinner party.

Lyman is playing with his food again. He boned a chicken by this method, then improvised a stuffing. I sewed a chicken's butt closed with a crewel needle and kitchen string.

"Ma'am, would you like some dinner tonight?"

"Sure. Just another olive in that martini, heh?"

It was Wednesday morning when we noticed something wrong with Lucy. She wasn't moving much and appeared depressed.

On Thursday, she was obviously keeping weight off her left foot, though she could curl her toes. On Friday, I called Craig and Debra to see if there was something special I could do for her. "Watch," they said. On Saturday she was allowing more pressure on the foot.

On Sunday, she was holding food in the foot. When she begged for a crust from Lyman's sandwich, he said "Go limp around for your Mama. She'll get you something."