June 2004 Archives

Reunion Blog Updated

A bit rainy this morning here. Looks like there's going to be a good turnout today and I really don't expect the weather to cooperate. No matter, the Louisianians hardly ever see good weather so this won't bother us.

Had a fun get-together at Mary's place last night. Pizza and salad and gorgeous weather. I don't know how she did that thing with the weather. I could get used to this. I took about 40 pictures. I think I'll be looking for a new Sandisk this week because I expect to take quite a few more today.

Saw something a bit unusual when I arrived. There are parking meters in the parking lots here. Struck me as odd. Seems to me you build a parking lot for the convenience of your customers. If you charge them, the only convenience is the proximity. Seems anti-business to me. That said, it doesn't seem to deter. The lots I can see are full as I write this missive.

This is the first time I've ever used an Apple. It's an Apple iMac and it takes a bit of getting used to.

Hope there aren't too many mis-spellings and typos. Can't do what I normally do.

I posted a comment in the reunion blog.

I will have worked 8 days at the store before taking a vacation. It is hard work sitting around watching the big hand make it around the clock 6 times. On Saturdays, it is 8 times.

I rented that movie so we could all be able to watch it together; a family movie. They are few and far between. It was very cute. I love Steve Martin. He is a very good actor. I am glad they didn't get too realistic on me. You know 12 kids would have been fighting like proverbial cats and dogs. There would have been a lot more panedmonium and the father should have been an irrational, yet ineffectual, dictator. And another thing, the mother's body would not look like she never had children. Spare me real life. I liked the movie.

Aaron and his friend, Cal, went to see HPIII, and Julia and I went to see Shrek 2, even though I had seen it before with Aaron weeks ago. It was cute. Next movie I see, I want it to be a movie that is just for grown ups. The last dozen or so that I have seen have been movies for my little people, which is all well and good, but I want to see some violence and hear some language. Okay, skip the violence; I am an adventure/comedy fan. I'd very much like to see "Saved".

Happy Father's Day

Some fun stuff I did this morning.

Also, Patsy's starting to get active on hers again. A story with a happy ending.

Here is a picture of Julia, Aaron, Jackson, and Jacob with the two guys from Trout Fishing in America. It was a fun concert, but I didn't hear all of my favorites.

For taking Julia, Aaron, and I to see Trout Fishing in America. They were excellent. We were discussing them on the way home and three songs came to mind that they didn't sing that we will have to request next year; "Mine", "Need a Band Aid", and most of all - "Are We There Yet?". Those guys are geniuses. They sound just like their CD's. We were very happy to hear "A Proper Cup of Coffee", which I finally have figured out, and "Say Something Sweet to My Baby". It was a fun day. Thanks again.

The inner working of the average male brain: I’ve been wanting a new digital camera for a while now because Patsy’s has some limitations. I was all set to break out the 35mm camera again but I had a thought. Since I figure to be taking a lot of pictures this summer, I figured why spend all that money on film and developing? Use that money, which I haven’t spent yet and don’t actually have, and put it towards a new camera. So I did. With Patsy’s blessings, of course. I have a lot of practicing and reading to do.

Some pictures I took last night and this morning with my new digital camera.

I scanned the front and back of the wonderful drawing that arrived in the mail yesterday from my nephew, Jackson. There it is below.

The picture below demonstrates the problem with growing tomatoes. They tend to ripen all at once. Patsy and I are serious tomato eaters but even this is more than we can handle. In a day or so, we will be totally overrun. Some of these are destined for Janine a little later today after we see the new Harry Potter movie.

The picture below demonstrates my need for a new digital camera. The Hewlett-Packard C200 is a fine starter camera but it has limitations. It has auto-focus but it, not you, determines what it focuses on. The Celebrity tomato below gave its life for the ham and turkey po-boy I just ate with Baby Swiss cheese and Dijonnaise. Patsy will finish it off with some liver cheese shortly.

In today's Times-Picayune:
Anthony Manguno, Jr. 6/15/22-6/8/04

On the 12th day of his stay at hospice, my father in law passed away. He died comfortable and at peace. We weren’t with him in that moment, but we were there with him that day for hours, so he heard our voices talking to him and around him. He was pretty much out of it all day Monday too, but when the two singing volunteers came around and played the Marine song for him and then the Navy song for his roommate, also a WWII vet, we all wondered aloud what the Army song was, and Anthony answered correctly what it was. Plus, as I was saying “I love you” to him, he said it back. I said I was going home, but would be back in the morning, and he said “be careful.” He had very little consciousness in the past few days, so those tidbits were comforting. I know he is in a better world than what he was experiencing for the past couple of years. He so wanted to go, but his body wouldn't cooperate he told me.

I will miss him. He was such a character.

Happy Birthday to you! I hope that you have a laugh out loud, kind of day!

Asiayh in her school play - "Lewis and Clark"

Hamzah in his school play - "Save the Plants" He's the Bumble Bee in thefront

aziz clan's new business - PCI Matrix, that's Omar in front hard at work. Hyder is in the background fixing a computer.

Since I'm sooo bad with getting cards in the mail I thought this would be a good way of letting you know I was thinking about you. Have a wonderful day!!!

I picked most of these yesterday between thunderstorms. Most of the cherry tomatoes are ready to eat now. The ones that aren't quite ready (They're the ones that are more orange than red) either fell off during the storm or fell off when I was picking others with my oversized, for this, hands.

The larger one is a Creole tomato that was crowding some larger and prettier Creole tomatoes. I picked it a tad early but we'll eat it later when it reddens.

17 years ago today, as your bridesmaid, I wore that peach dress that became an office dress. And a wedding/baby shower dress. And, heck, I wore that thing to death. Then, I think I had somebody's hand-me-down. There might still be one of those dresses floating around.

Father Miguel did a nice job of marrying you two. Or at least, I am pretty sure he was talking about that in his sermon. His Castillian Spanish accent was very thick, huh, Scott Alley?

I hope you celebrate in style.

I made some Pioneer biscuits the other day with Angela's homemade blackberry jam in mind for them. When my biscuits were hot out of the oven is when I discovered it isn't anywhere in this house. I need to order some more of that then. Or, the person who for some reason thinks Angela gave them 2 jars should just go ahead and turn it over to me.

So today was my first day of my swim class and no, the pool was not heated. I emerged from the pool an hour after beginning with purple lips and goose bumps everywhere. My teeth did not stop chattering the whole time I was in the water. At one point, the teacher (who happens to be a former Olympic gold medalist, Ashley something) looked at me and chastised me for not putting my face in the water. I'm sorry, it's just very hard to breathe under water when your mouth won't stay shut on account of the chattering teeth. I was not naive to think that I'd be outside in the nice warm sun, when I signed up for this class but I thought for sure that pool would be heated. Only 15 classes left! And did I mention that I have to wear a most unattractive bathing suit. It just keeps getting better! My other two classes are pretty easy thankfully.

My car has finally been assessed by my idiot insurance people and parts were ordered for it on Wednesday. The body shop manager told me it would be approximately three weeks. Does that mean I should count on at least four? I want my new baby back. My first payment will be made while it's in the shop. How sucky is that? I know, I have to look on the bright side and be thankful that no one was hurt, or at least not seriously. I still want my car back though! Now I just have to sit back and wait for the lawsuit to come in. Really, can you sue if it was just an accident? So I'm a bad driver, can you really sue me for that? I'd like to see them try to get anything out of this turnip!!

In the meantime I'm driving a Toyota Echo, compliments of my cheap insurance (and thank God I have it). As my friend referred to it, the Memory, because that's all you'll be if you get into an accident with it. It's a comforting thought, isn't it!

Here is a story from my blog friend, Susan Adcock (AKA Pitcherlady). Her site is wonderful. Great pictures, always, but delightful stories to go with them, too.

If a tree falls next to your house and nobody is awake, does it make a sound? We still don't know the answer to that. We awakened yesterday morning to find 81 feet of pine laying down in our driveway, 10-15 ft from my home, 10 feet from our two vehicles, narrowly missing anything and everything it could hit. Two large branches flanked the light pole in such a way as to miss it, like two large fingers holding a very large pencil. We are so happy to have that down. At least a year ago, our friend, Calvin, climbed up there with deer stand shoes and tied a rope around it about a third of the way up or so. He and Michael were going to pull it down themselves, but we never got around to it for a few reasons, so that rope just hung there like unfinished business for that long.

Here are some pictures from this weekend that Angela missed. Thursday night after the 10 hour graduation ceremony, we all went back to our house and had some eats (chicken fingers, spinach artichoke dip, etc...), took some pictures, opened some gifts...you know that old chestnut.

Just David annoying the mess out of Brianne...as usual.

Here are some pictures from our trip to Atlanta. We loved staying at the Lake House! Thank you, Sue and Scott, for all your hospitality. You are the host and hostess with the mostest!

Today was my first day home for summer vacation. Since we just came back from vacation, I have spent most of my day doing laundry. Janine, you once told me when I was in high school, that marriage is laundry. Boy, were you right. There are only two of us and the laundry never ends!

I have started my list of things-to-do this summer. Becoming better at my digital camera is one of them. Also, cleaning up my computer and figuring out its quirks is on the list. That could prove to be very challenging! I’ll be babysitting Jackson and Jacob Monday through Thursday while my sister is attending night classes this summer (just for three weeks), so I plan to do some cooking. I would hate to serve them frozen pizza and cereal every night. It might force me to branch out and try new recipes. Although, anytime I try something new I end up spending a lot of time and money and hate the dish. We’ll see. Other than that, I’m free as a bird, and I LOVE it! August 9th is coming up too fast already. L

Today's CrabAppleLane Blog entry.

May be of interest here.

PS - New entry on The Reunion Blog.