Mr. Woodlief will now have to find other excuses for his violent impulses.

(Thanks Jordana and happies to The Girl, too.)

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.