Please, give us a break! There is rain all over the state of Louisiana except for here!

I bought a little social insurance the other day.

Sometimes I'm just not on point. The night before we left for Colorado, back when, we attended a party for Lyman's law school class. It was a jolly group, and the host and hostess were warm, generous people with a lovely house in New Orleans.

While we carried 48 of Lyman's excellent crawfish tarts, the hostess deserved thanks in the form of a card.

Six months passed before I sent it. That was the last of a pretty box that I bought from Neiman-Marcus back when downtown Dallas was my stomping ground, say 1988.

I like to keep a stock of special cards for just such occasions.

So I turned to Jordana Adams to see what she had on offer.

She had an elegant painting of zinnias in a milk bottle that works perfectly on cards.

Thanks, Jordana.

Jim Smith follows up on the search for a chef for the White House.

Donna Tartt's book has engaged me. It is aimless, but I took it up with a "here we go" attitude and couldn't put it down.

She's a writer, after all.

She needs an editor.

Bookends

We're putting the travel cage up today.

The Hlatkys have suffered a loss.

What a pretty girl she was.

Lucy and Charlie slept the first time together in the same cage last night.

Charlie has been sleeping in a small travel cage on a table about five feet away from Lucy's.

They have all parts intact this morning, so I guess we're progressing here.

Charlie is six months old today, and smarter than an animal should be.

Mind, Charlie is a big eater.

When Lyman walked in with a bag of groceries today and set it on the counter, Charlie wolf whistled.

I spent half last night reading The Little Friend by Donna Tartt.

I haven't read her first book, see anywhere, which was a critical success.

I've gone a ways, but I'm not sure she's not just playing with a great jumble of typical southern characters and traits in this book. It could be experimental. If so, the resulting aimlessness is hardly her fault, but the fault of the publisher who chose to release it.

We'll see.

The dog days of summer have set in, and it's a thirsty dog at that.

We've had about 3/4 inch of rain in the past month. We've watched fronts split in all directions and or simply fizzle before reaching us, and I am psychically parched. A rainy day is cleansing and restorative, and no amount of sweet tea will substitute.

Children are already back to school and I can't put my mind around that. Students of my generation went back after Labor Day, when the light began to change and fall promised.

I feel low. Maybe some shopping is in order?

This news makes me unhappy on so many levels.

Charlie, all washed up

Here's Charlie after a bath.

My sister said, "Baby, you look worth about $1.386 right now."

Oak tree

I live with this tree.

I have a deadly fear of tornados.

You know, I never particularly wanted kids, and here's why. I just bought $70 worth of tickets for this stuff:

Live & Direct Summer Tour with Hieroglyphics featuring Souls of Mischief, Casual & Pep Love plus One Block Radius / Boom Bap Project and O.C. from Diggin Crates
Spanish Moon
1109 Highland Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70802
225.383.6666

Kick it, hon, and I want my money back.

Yes, yes.

But why is it that boys' noses grow faster than their bodies do?

I've been talking to Michael's girl, and she has a 13-year-old son. She showed pictures.

He's a sharp-featured, good-looking boy whose face is almost all nose.

My nephew, Craig, as a child of that age was all nose. He's taller and better looking than Tom Cruise. Similar coloring.

As promised yesterday, Smiley Anders has written of the two other Louisiana winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest today:

On Thursday, I promised to run the other two category winners from Louisiana in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

Put on by the English department at San Jose State University, it honors, more or less, the author who penned "a dark and stormy night" by seeking the world's worst opening paragraph for a novel.

Sen. Jay Dardenne, as we mentioned Thursday, won the "Vile Puns" category.

Here's the winner of the "Grand Panjandrum's Special Award," by Ken Aclin of Shreveport:

"India, which hangs like a wet washcloth from the towel rack of Asia, presented itself to Tex as he landed in Delhi (or was it Bombay?), as if it mattered because Tex finally had an idea to make his mark and fortune and that idea was a chain of steak houses to serve the millions and he wondered, as he deplaned down the steep, shiny, steel steps, why no one had thought of it before."

Staff Sgt. Kevin Craver of Fort Polk won the "Fantasy Fiction" category with this one, which you have to be an avid reader of fantasy tales to really dig:

"Why does every task in the Realm of Zithanor have to be a quest?" Baldak of Erthorn, handyman to the Great Wizard Zarthon, asked rhetorically as he began his journey to find the Holy Hammer of Taloria and the Sacred Nail of Ikthillia so Baldak could hang one of Zarthon's mediocre watercolors, which was an art critique Baldak kept to himself unlike his predecessor, whom Zarthon turned into the Picture Frame of Torathank."

For other winners, see here.

Sorry, Terry, but there are a lot of bad writers out there.

UPDATE: I like this offering in the fantasy fiction category:

The dragon cast his wet, rheumy eyes, heavy-lidded with misery, over his kingdom-a malodorous, rot-ridden swamp, with moss cloaking brooding, gloomy cypresses, tree trunks like decayed teeth rising from stagnant ponds, creatures with mildewed fur and scales whom the meanest roadside zoo would have rejected--and hoped the antidepressants would kick in soon.

Constance Barrett
Ruby, NY

Smiley Anders has news of Louisiana winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest:

As you may have heard, Baton Rouge's state Sen. Jay Dardenne brought fame and glory (or shame and dishonor, take your pick) to our city by winning the "Vile Puns" category of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held since 1982 by the San Jose State University English Department to find the world's worst writers. It's named, of course, for the British author who coined "a dark and stormy night."

The senator -- a Republican, but a funny one -- won with this effort:

"Falcon was her name and she was quite the bird of prey, sashaying past her adolescent admirers from one anchor store to another, past the kiosks where earrings longed to lie upon her lobes and sunglasses hoped to nestle on her nose, seemingly the beginning of a beautiful friendship with whomsoever caught the eye of the mall tease, Falcon."

Jay's triumph brought this response from Judge Bob Downing:

"I am eaten up with envy over Sen. Dardenne's recent award. When I was at LSU living in that bare room in West Stadium, I would stay up late writing and writing trying to win that award.

"Yes, I was up many a stark and dormy night."

Land of bad writers

As readers of this column can testify, Louisiana is the home of some really awful writing.

So it's no surprise that two other Louisiana writers won categories in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

Ken Aclin of Shreveport won the "Grand Panjandrum's Special Award" and Staff Sgt. Kevin Craver of Fort Polk won the "Fantasy Fiction" category.

We'll run these winners Friday (I figure you've had enough lousy prose for one day).

My brother called tonight to tell me that he got the house in Natchez. This is news of high good order.

I've never thought it quite fair that he brought me here then had to leave.

He's coming home.

Now, what to do about my sister ...

Charlie & squash

Charlie is adept at holding food for eating. That's zucchini in his fist.

Shellie gets letters.

One this week contains this line in reference to Southerners:

We don't worry if our relatives were on the Mayflower; we worry about how they behaved during the trip.