I've been busy today, preparing for a short inventory trip to the coast which will entail buying a new refrigerator to replace the one we bought about eight years ago. The door has rusted along the gasket at the bottom. I see no way to repair it. We're talking flaking rust here, not the odd orange color. I knew this in May, but staggered through the summer.

I have two new strap chairs for the snowbirds. We'll replace four more on their rental checks. I have a bedspread ordered to replace the one that went missing in the master bedroom sometime in August.

We will leave tomorrow and hope to return on Saturday. Lyman's older son will look after the birds. The younger one will come in on Sunday. I don't have a thing for their stockings yet.

I feel hateful already.

The Louisiana Supreme Court will not hear Glenn Lipsey's appeal.

We drove around looking at Christmas lights last night. Good cheer!

Well I never.

Those dark bumps look to be seeds sprouting, too.

How much is whole turkey selling for in your locale?

I didn't check local whole birds, but smoked turkey necks, used by fat-conscious cooks for seasoning greens and such, are $1.89 a pound at the local market, ten cents less than hamhocks. Heck, raw turkey necks are 99 cents a pound.

That sounds outrageous to me. Of course, $1.99 for hamhocks sounds outrageous to me, too.

Today I'm cooking chicken and dumplings for the first time since September 2005.

I told Lyman then that it would be a long time before I made them again.

Yay!!!

Under certain conditions, the concrete under our carport would "sweat" and become slick as glass. The last time I went down this spring, I did a half-split, which broke the fall but pulled a groin muscle.

A couple of weeks ago, we applied the UCoat It kit that we ordered this summer.

Today is the right kind of day, and the coating works.

UPDATE: Jordana, here is a picture of part of the UCoated carport. On my monitor, the color looks right.

And there we are.

I'd say Sarah's is far more artistic than mine.

UPDATE: Oh, my. Is that ever good. I served it with fresh whipped cream and a couple of Louisiana strawberries.

Thank you, Sarah. And Happy Hanukkah!

For some reason, I own a 10" springform pan, but not a 9". If the recipe weren't layered I'd make do.

Off to Blankenstein's.

UPDATE: Question: If I bake this cheesecake today, and want to serve it Friday, is it all right to refrigerate it in the pan until that morning? This pan is non-stick.

Lucy visits Dr. Debbie today for a trim -- flight feathers, toenails, beak.

And for the first time since, oh, July, Charlie sang "We wish you a merry Christmas" this morning.

Lawyers for defeated sheriff's candidate Glenn Lipsey have filed a "writ of application" with the Louisiana Supreme Court, according to the Concordia Sentinel. The Democrat has more.

Our household has determined to institute turtle soup as a Christmas dinner dish. Michael asked for it for his birthday this past weekend.

I hope we can find more turtle for Christmas.

This Friday we hold the Christmas luncheon for the adults in the family. The menu is simple this year: boiled shrimp with cocktail sauce, green salad, shrimp sauce piquant(Creole) with rice, garlic bread and chocolate layered cheesecake with whipped cream. Sarah has a picture of the cheesecake at her place today. I found the recipe through her. Happy birthday, Mr. G!

I know that's two shrimp dishes, but Lyman's family loves shrimp, and anyone (including restaurants) would be proud to serve the sauce piquant from this book.

The family would only be happier if we'd fry some shrimp, too.

UPDATE: Hmmm, better change that "adults in the family." How about "parents in the family"?

Oh no! I was hoping LSU would play a nice, comfortable bowl game.

Now the Tigers will play Ohio State for the National Championship.

Sorta makes you homesick, don't it, Scott?

(Thanks, Mr. Reynolds.)

Your Score: Poppy Seeds

You scored 75% intoxication, 25% hotness, 50% complexity, and 75% craziness!

You are Poppy Seeds! You seem innocent enough, but you're dangerous. You sneak up on people with your seductive ways, hiding in plain sight. When you grow to your full potential, those who really get to know you just can't leave you alone - they're hooked for life.

Link: The Which Spice Are You Test written by jodiesattva on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Mmmm, kolaches.

(Thanks, Tony.)

I'm picking out pecans this morning. I plan to make the recipe here.

They've been through a mechanical cracker, but they're small and some were missed.

These lazy, selfish parrots could be a lot of help here. But nooooo...

UPDATE: I think that we can increase the seasonings for household tastes. Otherwise a good holiday addition. Thank you, Diane.

Mr. Lipsey's appeal was dismissed.

Here is the court's opinion, written by Judge Ulysses G. Thibodeaux.

The Sentinel has excerpted the opinion here. It's a little easier to read.

UPDATE: My opinion, which is not that of an election lawyer, is that Mr. Lipsey was between a rock and a hard place concerning due diligence prior to the vote. If he had followed up on his allegations that some Concordia Parish Sheriff's Office employees were being forced to register to vote illegally, and to vote for Mr. Maxwell (beats me how their votes could be proved), he would have endangered some jobs and aroused ire among the very employees that he would have headed had he won. I suppose there could have been some surprise challenges on election day.

One of the requirements for holding a position in the CPSO is to reside within Concordia Parish, as is one of the requirements for voting in Concordia Parish. So each employee voter that he outed for illegal registration due to residency requirements was also holding their job against the rules*.

That's no way to make friends.

UPDATE II: Not just the state of Louisiana is loathe to overturn elections. Better to make your case and and have good turnout on election day. One of Mr. Lipsey's problems regarding fraud is that only something around 7,000 of 13,000 registered voters voted at all. He had a large excess pool to draw from.

On the other hand, in one of the elections Huey Long had control of, St. Bernard Parish turned out more than 3,000 votes in a parish with 2,500 something registered voters.

* There is nothing illegal about sheriff's office employees living outside the parish, Lyman says. A handbook requirement.

Nobody can carry on like an overwrought southerner.

This sheriff's race has brought on a lot of high emotion. The decision from the appellate court should be announced in the next few hours. The Democrat's story with comments is here. (I expect those comments to be closed anytime now.)

The Concordia Sentinel saw fit to publish an editorial condemning undocumented accusations by anonymous persons in local and national forums.

On one public local board, concordiaunderground.org, some people took exception to this editorial, and have defended their right to post opinions anonymously. To a degree, I agree with them. In a small region like this, there is occasion for reprisal against whistleblowers. What I haven't seen is a lot of evidence of legal wrongdoing.

But that's not to my point. My point is that Scarlett O'Hara herself might consider the following statement a little emphatic:

And this editorial has the gall to state that we should bare our throats with our true identities so the knife of corruption can slice into us without reason.

And it's just not as lyrical as this one.

UPDATE: I do think that southerners can sense their Shakespeare better than anyone else.

"Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ..."

Check out this Volokh post for a fun geography game.

I had no idea that Patricia Cornwell is a lesbian.

Not that it makes any difference. I'll still be looking forward to new novels.

(Thanks, Mr. Blair.)

Fabio, Fabio. You're still a fine-looking man, but hon, you're 48. Isn't it time to cut your hair?

Samson you ain't.

(Thanks, Ms. Althouse.)

The Food Network was built on Emeril's popularity, but I won't miss him.

His show had become predictable and tedious.

Lucy laid an egg at 9:24 p.m.

Lucy is tired and tucked after seeing her big brothers.

I could never do a split.

Thanks, Nate.

You don't see much of this since Ed Sullivan went off the air.

Jason is reading Choke. It looks like fun.

FRESH VEGETABLE CASSEROLE

2 tablespoons margarine or butter
2 large onions, sliced in rings
3 carrots, sliced
1/2 medium bell pepper, sliced in rings
1/2 pound fresh green beans, long snaps
2 large tomatoes, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

In a skillet melt the margarine. Add onions and sauté until light brown. Place the onion, carrots, bell pepper, green beans, tomatoes and parsley in a greased 2-quart shallow casserole. Mix lightly and add the seasonings. Bake the casserole, covered, at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or until the vegetables are tender, stirring once. Serves 8.

From this book.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

I'll tell you our menu in Michael's words:

Spinach salad from the garden, chicken stuffed with rice and mushrooms, fresh vegetable casserole, maque choux, dinner rolls, and pork ribs in the oven for dessert.

When Lyman's sons come home to visit, they always bring loads of laundry.

There are never any sheets in there.

Well, whaddya know.

I don't like'em much, but I do have a couple of intricate stalks of silk ivy that I use in the living room. Some places want that organic frilliness. And they were some kind of dusty.

I used the salt method, in a kitchen garbage bag, and they're much better. Thanks, Sue D.

... and I need to get Huey Long back to the library.

We've had some drama around the local sheriff's election on October 20.

Resolution here. The Democrat has found it necessary to close comments on some stories regarding this election.

UPDATE: More here and here.

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Now that's a little scary.

(Thanks, Sarah.)

Mostly Cajun points out PC madness in publishing children's books.

Alkahest? (Free Rice)

I just found this picture of Charlie in the camera. I like it.

He appears to have had a bath.

All right. I give up now.

Does "kerf" mean 1) expert 2) hobo 3) notch 4) mushroom?

I'll go for notch.

This year, the next satsuma tree up the row is loaded.

Here is the picture of a pretty pink poppy that kitchen hand mentioned below, with a story.

Mine was one of these -- that tangerine one back there, with a white vinyl top. If you'll scroll down you'll see an example of the "deluxe" plaid interior.

My friend Sam named it "Wanda".

That's all bad enough, but I couldn't keep a water pump in it.

UPDATE: My next car was a totally gray Nissan Sentra.

"That's fine with me."

Ms. Althouse has something else interesting today.

Fact is, people need makeup on TV. How will they overcome the difference in appearance between regular and high-definition television while it lasts?

A commenter at Hit & Run said that on his HDTV, the only person near the stage during last night's Democratic debate who didn't look 150 years old was Mr. Obama.

UPDATE: One of the commenters at Althouse says that the pron industry is much dismayed by the higher resolutions.

Cutting edge? London? Aw shoot, they do that at Dimples ever night.

(Thanks, Ms. Althouse.)

Have you seen these?

Lyman brought a pack home this week. They do smell and taste like grapes, or to be true, like grape soda.

I have a request.

A few weeks ago I had a hankering for graham crackers. I bought a box of Nabiscos, and I've eaten most of them. They were dandy.

But what's better, and would be more wholesome for Janis and the birds, would be a nice homemade digestive biscuit.

I've found a few recipes. Do you have one that you use?

I'm with Dr. Taylor. Surely they're kidding.

Gail Collins of the New York Times sure enough doesn't like John Edwards:

Something weird is going on with John Edwards, who was cheerfulness incarnate when four years ago he was the moderate-Southerner-who-can-speak-to-the-Reagan-Democrats. Then he morphed into a sorrowful populist who thought we should vote for him because he cared the most about the poor. Now he’s running around like a rabid gerbil, telling people he should be president because he’s the angriest. Soon, he’s going to run out of adjectives to embody.

"A rabid gerbil?" That's unkind.

I've never tried to grow poppies.

Time to pick on Tony.

In this post he comments that men do not have good fits for jock straps, either.

So I suggest that you use the same water displacement technique. And let your engineers take it on. (I'd think there is some kind of codpiece with gel for professional athletes.)

It's near Thanksgiving, so the best vessel I can recommend is a turkey pot. Parts will fit, won't they?

I was wandering around the blogs at The New Republic, and found this post.

Go on, go on ... waste an hour or so.

UPDATE: Well, by golly, I thank Robert Graves for I, Claudius. Claudication means "lameness."

Hard for me to fathom how measuring the weight of one's breasts would help with overall fit. I'd suppose my breasts weigh about the same as they did when I was 22. They just aren't in the same places.

But I do like this comment: "If men wore bras you can bet your life a bra would have been designed which fits, flatters and feels comfortable to wear!"- Leanne, Notts UK

UPDATE: I like the looks of this line.

UPDATE II: Now I'm thinking, how could I be so sexist as to agree with Leanne? Where are the women engineers looking to our comfort? They darned sure aren't designing shoes. And it is an engineering problem rather than a fashion problem, at least at my age.

Your Inner European is Russian!

Mysterious and exotic. You've got a great balance of danger and allure.

Who's Your Inner European?

Well, now. My inner musician is Tchaikovsky, and my inner European is Russian. A pattern develops.

(Thanks, Ms. Postrel.)

Hard to say what that means, but I'll expect a "cease and desist" letter from MENSA anyday now.

(Thanks, Possum.)

Oh, wow!

I might have to buy a couple of those for the sons' stockings.

(Thanks, Latino.)

Then maybe a couple of certificates for carbon credits to offset their auto use. Wouldn't that be cool?

I think that would be enough.

I've read up to page 690 of the nearly 900 page biography of Huey Long. At this point, he has become a U.S. Senator and is in conflict with FDR, which is showing in the home state.

But I want to go back (pp. 537-8), to where Mr. Long was organizing the race for his succession to governor of LA. Earl Long, as his brother and party organizer, thought the lieutenant governorship was his for the asking. His older brother disagreed. So the whole Long family took to the stump against each other, most aligned with Earl.

Mr. Williams writes this:

[Huey] would begin the story by describing a social gathering popular with rural Protestants -- an "all-day singing" at the church, with "dinner on the grounds." At such a meeting in Winnfield, he would continue, the mothers had laid their babies on a pallet under a tree during the dinner. As they were clearing the table, a violent storm suddenly broke. Each mother hastily collected her child. But there was one baby that nobody would claim, an ugly, squalling brat. Mrs. Long, unwilling to see the child abandoned, had taken it home and adopted it. "That was Earl."

So Huey Long said.

Thank you, Mr. Drum.

The most telling paragraph, considering the general tenor of Democratic comment in the blogosphere, is this one:

Many conservative Christian leaders say they can count on the specter of a second Clinton presidency to fire up their constituents. But the prospect of an Obama-Giuliani race is another matter. “You would have a bunch of people who traditionally vote Republican going over to Obama,” said the Rev. Donald Wildmon, founder of the Christian conservative American Family Association of Tupelo, Miss., known for its consumer boycotts over obscenity or gay issues.

That upsets the assumption of racism in the South, I would say. The Republicans he's talking about aren't black.

And help us, this was said in Kansas rather than Louisiana, not that it might'nt be: "“Obama sounds too much like Osama,” said Kayla Nickel of Westlink. “When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!’"

Like, Kayla, are you an ignorant xenophobe, or what?

It's such a pretty day, I ... cleaned my refrigerator!

That should be good for a day or two.

It's cool outside today.

Try for the first time a posole? Or go with tried and true Ally's Green Chili?

What to do, what to do?

C'mon, Tigers. Alabama ain't all that.

Now, Nick's something.

Oh, poor Sweeties, didn't I tell you to stay outside?

What an awful way to die.

I have moved on to this book. And I have a question for anyone who can answer.

The "Old Regulars" political machine in New Orleans refused to allow natural gas to be piped into the city, keeping the citizenry dependent on more expensive "artificial gas". What was this artificial gas? The author doesn't say.

And how about "Swords Lee" as a name? Beats "Ashley Wilkes" anyday.

UPDATE: In 1927, Riley J. Wilson was one of the candidates for governor of Louisiana. He grew up in poor circumstances and often talked of having to go barefoot as a child. Huey Long said, "I can go Mr. Wilson one better; I was born barefoot."

For a little Halloween atmosphere.

Lyman called the IRS (that's the federal income tax agency in the US) for a reason.

He was put on hold. The recorded voice said, "Our representatives are helping other customers. Please hold."

Customers? CUSTOMERS?!!!!

Talking to the IRS is always a horror story, with zombies.

Happy Halloween!

"Oh, that color."

I'm looking at the ribbing of the sweatshirt I'm wearing today. It's a dedicated "small paint sweatshirt".

Why do I keep clothes so long?

The babyshit mustard paint on this shirt, what designers now call "Tuscany gold", is the artefact of a bad yellow color that my mother chose for the house I grew up in. It wasn't badly her fault. She didn't try it before she painted, that's all. She wanted champagne and wound up with light lager. She asked me to paint a door.

This color was for the trim.

Lucy has another egg. It was there yesterday.

Back in the day, in the suburbs of Dallas, our newspaper group ran pretty baby contests.

It was more fun than a lot of revenue projects. Babies are a funny lot. But the revenue benefits were iffy. The project was time consuming. It raised printing costs. Where our papers sold in newsstands, people would pay for one paper and steal another half dozen for the ballot forms.

At any rate, if you'd like to look at the baby pictures at the Alexandria Town Talk newspaper, they're here.

I'd guess the contest is easier to manage online.

UPDATE: I like the expression on #088. How about the dimples on #032? #436 has enormous eyes. #077 is going to cut my Social Security payments.

#396 seems to have a wild sense of humor. She's my fave.

It's 54 degrees out there today. It hasn't been as low as 54 at night here.

I am reading this book. How in the world do you pronounce the name Delesdernier?

Which Classical Music Composer are You? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Tchaikovsky You are Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky! One of the most well know Russian composers today, Tchaikovsky drew much inspiration from folk songs and his own melancholy. He was homosexual but conceal it through a failed marriage and several other ill-fated relationships. Tchaikovsky 69% J.S. Bach 63% Franz Liszt 50% Hector Berlioz 44% Antonin Dvorak 0%

The verification for this post is zmvynbiy, which might mean something in Russian.

(Thank you, Chef Tony.)

They're doing it again, and this story provides as good an example as any:

Jindal, 36, will be the nation's youngest sitting governor. The son of Indian immigrants, he will also be the first Indian American governor in U.S. history, and the first nonwhite to hold the job in Louisiana since Reconstruction (emphasis mine).

Raise your hand if you've ever lived in a state with a non-white governor. Which state was it, and what was the governor's name?

In the twentieth century, Hawaii had some non-white governors, Douglas Wilder was the African-American governor of Virginia for a while, and Deval Patrick is currently governor of Massachusetts. Anyone else?

UPDATE: Bruce Moomaw over at James Joyner's place brings up Gary Locke, the Chinese-American governor of Washington for a period, and Bill Richardson, the mostly Hispanic governor of New Mexico. That's a big four on the continent.

Lucy has another egg. I don't know whether it belongs to the 20th or the 21st.

She broke the other one from this clutch.

This story raises a smile.

Before I forget, Lucy laid an egg at 10:50 p.m. on October 17.

Mr. Paul Palubicki and Peg Britton have posted different exercises to find the candidates who hold opinions closest to yours.

The one at Paul's place is far more comprehensive, but Peg's is fine for a quick look.

My rump would not be so sore if I'd listened to my mama and spent more time cleaning baseboards than painting them.

A friend sent us this video of Snowball, the dancing cockatoo.

This boy has some rhythm.

If that dancer is not your type, try this one.

You know, I've been figuring our electric savings from our improvements wrong.

After changing some lightbulbs, I estimate the baseload of our house to be about 900kW a month. That includes refrigerators and computers, washer and dryer, lights and ventilation. That can't be changed without replacing appliances.

Changing the windows and ducts, and sealing the chase, the recessed lights and air supply boots affect air-conditioning usage, or later, gas usage.

So today, when I read the meter for a months usage at 1486, and compare it to last year's usage for the same month, 1811 with an estimated baseload of 1000 kW, I should calculate the variable energy savings. Let's see, 811-586=225, 225/811=27.7. Absolute savings is 17.9 percent.

But all of this is senseless without a comparison of degree days for the two reporting periods. If you have a source where I can find historical numbers, I'd be most appreciative. I can find a month's worth at accuweather.com.

How are you doing, Mr. Gore? Congratulations on the prize.

Beware! Wet paint!

African Grey parrots have the reputation for being smart, but watch this macaw.

The tape is in French. If that bothers you, turn the sound down.

Margaret is one of the great names for women. What did her friends call her, Frederick?

What did you call her? I called mine "Mother". She was tired of "Mama" many years ago.

Everyone, including grandchildren, calls Lyman's mother "Girl".

It's no fun at all going south if you can't go all Tennessee Williams, now, is it?

Do di do, ah, do di do.

Wait just a damn minute, Gary Post-Tribune.

20,000 people from across the nation didn't descend on Jena, Louisiana, because they thought it was a problem unique to the Deep South. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were explicit in their motives regarding the march in Jena: to call attention to racially unfair prosecution across the country.

Why they couldn't do that at home is a different question, and I don't know enough to go there.

However, a little point Gary might take into consideration is from this article in the Concordia Sentinel:

While hate groups exist all over the country, it is erroneous to say the Ku Klux Klan still operates here, Ingram said, adding that the only Klan organization he knows of today is in Indiana.

Stanley Nelson is investigating a 60's Klan murder in Ferriday.

UPDATE: That goes for you, too, John Mellencamp.

Mostly Cajun has one of the best Boudreaux jokes I've read in a long time. And it's clean!

I visited my new doctor's office this morning. More get acquainted stuff, mainly, with a liquid nitrogen treatment of a seborrheic keratosis that had emerged on my back.

The doctor is one of five doctors in the clinic. The waiting room is large, and today, cold. Is this one of those buildings that's cold in the summer and hot in the winter?

Charlie was carrying on in his cage before I left this morning. His most-used phrase now is "Mr. Wolf," most often done as a call. He might howl or might not.

So in a seamless transition from home to doctor's office, the first patient called after I arrived was Mr. Wolf.

I woke this morning to an e-mail from the director of Warnings. He was googling his name and found this entry from last year.

It's been over 25 years since we've exchanged greetings.

We're painting, off and on. Then trying to mollify the birds, because neither of them takes kindly to being banished to the back room while paint fumes subside.

Lyman had a birthday on September 12. He is 61.

We're watching Florida State play Colorado.

Jimbo Fisher left his position as offensive coordinator for LSU to go to Florida State.

"Why?" I asked.

"He may become head coach when Bobby Bowden retires," he said.

"How old is he?" I asked.

"I don't know. He's younger than I am."

"Nearly everybody is younger than you are."

We are painting. Later.

Some scientists discount Dr. Pepperberg's work with Alex. Let me see ...

Let's look at this article, this paragraph:

Pepperberg's research remains controversial, with some skeptics maintaining that Alex's apparent mastery of language revealed nothing more than a very sophisticated version of conditioned responses. Pepperberg says that is hard to reconcile with such findings as Alex's 80% accuracy in counting objects. In her peer-reviewed papers, she has said that he seemed to have intelligence comparable to a five-year-old child, but emotional behaviour more like a two-year-old.

My readers know that Charlie goes "bonk." He even calls himself a "bonky boy." That means that he falls, with a noise. Sometimes that noise is "splat," and he winds up in the vet's office.

He's well enough to come out of the cage now. The other night, he was on the top rung of the Parrot Tower. Lyman set part of an ear of corn between the dishes there at the top.

Charlie piddled with it for a while, then it dropped to the tray with a loud noise. Charlie said, "Charlie go bonk." Well, he did make it go bonk.

If that was a "sophisticated conditioned response," maybe all of our language is based on "sophisticated conditioned responses."

Fritz Schranck has returned to blogging after attending to family matters.

He offers a memorial to 9/11 from Blue Man Group.

(Thank you, Mr. Schranck.)

Oh, no! Alex died. He was 31.

According to Dr. Irene Pepperberg, his last words to her were on last Thursday night:

You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.

In other parrot news, Lucy laid an egg on the evening of September 9.

UPDATE: There seems to be some confusion about Alex's last words. They might have been, "You'll be in tomorrow."

(Thanks, Mr. Farber.)

No investigation at all has been done about the arson at the Jena high school, from what I can tell. Who has an interest in the new building?

Your Personality Cluster is Introverted Intuition

You are: Multilayered and complex Inspired and driven to achieve your goals A visionary with a complete life plan Intuitive enough to understand difficult problems, ideas, and people

What's Your Personality Cluster?

If you say so, but I think those four questions provide a thin dataset for a personality evaluation.

(Thanks, Diane.)

I have been reading a bit about the Jena 6. It's a big, messy story about Jena, a little town west of Vidalia.

What people will put in comments sections amazes me. In the comments of this account, oh, about 1/4 of the way down on the right scrollbar, you'll find someone who blames the whole business on -- who else -- "the Jews."

I say, let's blame it on global warming. It all started with a shade tree, didn't it?

UPDATE: And to defuse the situation for the new school year, the administrators cut down the tree.

My, my.

Roscoe the tiger, now Mike VI of LSU, is doing very well.

He's playing in his new environment like a 330 pound kitten, which he is.



He doesn't seem to be oppressed.

See, I can catblog, too.

Meh. I'll give it a shot anyway.

Shellie Tomlinson doesn't seem to get bent if I steal something something from her so long as she gets credit. Here's something from her letter file today:

Dear Shellie,

I heard that Bubba went to the local revival. When the minister finished his sermon, he invited anyone that needed a special prayer to come forward. Bubba got in line and when his turn came, the minister asked him what he needed a prayer for. Bubba stated that he needed a special prayer for his hearing. The minister placed one finger in Bubba's ear, the other hand on Bubba's head and prayed. When he finished, he asked Bubba if that helped his hearing. Bubba said he didn't know yet because the hearing wasn't till next week in Baton Rouge.

Bob Barrett in Oak Grove, LA

Thanks to Medpundit for proving, once again, that the Internet is a wondrous place.

Charlie has learned to say "Mister Wolf." He also does a serviceable howl.

Clever boy that he is, yesterday he combined the two: "Mr. Wooo-oooooo-oooooooo-ooolf."

I hadn't thought of that.

Getting ready for some football

30 pounds of raw peanuts on the boil to make snacks for the season. They'll soak in salted water to taste, drain, then be frozen for later use. There's another 30 pound sack, too.

Boiled peanuts were new to me when I came South.

The September issue of Southern Living magazine has recipes for boiled peanuts and one for boiled peanut hummus. (Pssst! Chick peas are cheaper and easier.)

Lyman's son e-mailed this rhapsody to Southern football by Wright Thompson.

Neither here nor there, except for this phrase, which I haven't heard before:

... messier than a small town divorce ...