My concern with the southern floods? I live five blocks from the Vidalia levee.

Oh, c'mon y'all cynics, you have to love the South:

"I want to say this: Graceland is safe. And we would charge hell with a water pistol to keep it that way and I'd be willing to lead the charge," said Nations, the county emergency official.

Great-nieces, 4 and 19 months. Lyman and I went up together to cook rehearsal dinner when their parents were married eleven years ago.

I didn't take many pictures on the trip, and none were good, but this gives you an idea of the view from my brother's house. The zoom is too strong on this one. That's the Columbia River, where you can glimpse it.

A somewhat interesting article in Christianity Today about the predominance of the King James version of the Bible in history.

(Thanks, Real Clear Politics.)

Of the three airports I used on this trip -- Baton Rouge, Dallas and Portland -- only one (Baton Rouge) had such a clearly marked facility for nursing mothers. And it was a small, separate room with a comfortable chair. That's all I took in at a glance.

There are frogs on the banks of the Columbia River that actually say "ribbet."

Around here we mainly have bullfrogs that "croak" -- sounds more like a belch, really.

The original:

Here's a story from the Baton Rouge Advocate about the flood of '27 and current fears.

Greenville is about halfway between here and Memphis, TN.

The Natchez Democrat has plenty of stories describing the activities and mood here.

Hey, y'all!

That was a good visit to the northwest. That sister-in-law of mine is just the same -- and a wonderful hostess. We picked up right where we left off eleven years ago. If I'd eaten as much as she tried to cram down me I would have put on ten pounds.

She still treats me like a baby.

Here at home, people are packing up precious belongings and taking them to higher ground. They worry that the levee will break under the stress of handling waters that have never been so high in recent history. The expected river crest will be higher than that of the floods of 1937 and 1927.

The mayor and the sheriff are trying to calm people's fears. They are in constant touch with the Corps of Engineers, who assure us that the levees will hold.

If not, Charles has offered us his spare bedroom in Natchez. One of my other big brothers in Dallas has offered his home as sanctuary should it come to that. But that is too far away. I appreciate the thought, though.

Y'all can get rang'upped stupid any day you want, but I'm going to see my big brother.

I'm a few pages into the second volume of the Byzantine trilogy.

I've been thinking a little about what person I'd like to be in the empire. I can't think of one. Maybe a nice, busy nun, far from the seat of power. The kitchen garden would be pleasant.

Goodnight, Irene. She was the first empress of the Byzantine empire when Charlemagne was coronated emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Umm, she mutilated and murdered her own son to attain the position. And so closes the first volume of the Byzantine trilogy.

Charlemagne asked her to marry him. Didn't sound like such a bad idea to her, but her citizens flipped. She was overthrown, exiled and dead shortly after.

Oh, well.

I consider it a mission to remind people that Fleetwood Mac wasn't always a pop band.

Now the driver has a valid Louisiana license. I'm done.

That's the story, Kate.

Without the parts that recount how little the left hand knows what the right is doing in GA -- positively, ambidextrously obstructive.

The whole business was stupid, avoidable, boring, frustrating and expensive.

Kate wrote to tell me that I've been too cryptic about the Georgia saga. Now that the boy has a valid driver's license and insurance, I'll try to recount events to the best of my knowledge.

It does not involve anything so heinous as an accident or DUI. It's a tale of ignorance and neglect, a failure to recognize that valid "communication" in our current society extends beyond text-messaging and Facebook.

Let's go on:

On a spring day in Decatur, GA, the boy is stopped by an officer for "driving too fast for conditions," whatever that means. In the course of writing that citation, s/he finds that the registration of the vehicle has expired, the car has not been registered in Georgia, the driver's license has expired, the driver has failed to transfer his driver's license to GA, and there's an "open container" in the car, which the driver insists to me is an empty beer can.

A smart, responsible person would have hustled his butt to the nearest office of the GA Department of Driver Services and taken care of four of those things, and presented evidence to the Dekalb Recorder's Court. Not this one, though. He drops the citation in the glove box and never looks at it again.

He does get the GA driver's license sometime down the road.

The court date comes and goes. The driver doesn't look at regular snail mail. Who uses mail anymore? Duh.

Years pass. At Christmas in 2010, he re-registers the car in Louisiana, the Dekalb Recorder's Court grows impatient, issues six warrants for arrest and suspends the driver's license for "failure to appear." The driver doesn't know this because it didn't show up on Facebook.

The driver is caught driving with a suspended license and gets hauled off to the pokey. The driver calls Daddy.

Daddy bails the driver out with the help of the driver's local friend, and finally, the driver appears in court. Daddy pays fines.

The driver goes to the DDS to reinstate the license. No go. Daddy calls the driver's mother. There are more charges outstanding. The driver goes to the courthouse, pays fines, and finds that there are more charges outstanding. These are turned over to a probation service.

And that's where I come in, dealing with the probation service, the Recorder's Court and the GA DDS. I am doing this because the driver has relocated his sorry self to Louisiana and is working.

And here we are.

Good food is always good news.

Lyman and I have been erratically trying to develop a go-to stir fry recipe for years. The other day he came across Garlic Chicken Stir-Fry.

We've made a few changes to bring it more in line with our tastes. First, a teaspoon of grated ginger ain't nothin'. We use a tablespoon of minced. Second, two tablespoons of sugar is way too much for us. If we want something sweet we'll buy ice cream. So we dropped that to a pinch, about a teaspoonful. Third, we added about five minced dried Thai chiles for heat. Fourth, we added a carrot, thinly sliced so it would cook quickly.

And for variation, last night we used pork tenderloin sliced into thin strips rather than chicken. Rather than browning that early, we waited until the veggies were nearly done, so the pork wouldn't dry out.

It was good. Worth doing regularly.