February 29th

It's fun to have a day that only comes around every four years. I am not sure what to do with this day. In church, I asked my two single sisters and their friend if they planned to propose to anyone today and they just groaned. I have a friend who celebrates her anniversary today.

Oh well, back to watching Star Wars on Fox right now.

P.S. If you decide to buy a DVD recorder that writes in +RW, be aware that the resulting recordings will probably NOT work in DVD players, even those that claim to read +RW, in spite of the claims on the box. They will work in computer DVD writers, though. I found this out the hard way. Sigh.

Spent a Few Days in Atlanta

We were out of town for a few days. We visited my sister in Atlanta. Just about the same time that we drove past the Georgia state line, we saw snow on the ground. My sister got 1 & 1/2 inches that morning (see photo below -- that's where we were). In fact, our usual route to Atlanta (through Centre) was supposedly snowed in, so we went through Birmingham (skirting the worst of it). Since it has been a year or two or more since they had this much snow, her children loved it. School was cancelled . We loved it because of less traffic on the way. Atlanta made 3 of the top 20 worst traffic areas this year and I've been stuck in all of them! Whew!

On the way to Atlanta, as we entered the very busy I-285 around the city and while I was driving, our windshield wipers decided to quit working. It was drizzling and I could not see well enough to pull off the road so I just kept going. It's not the kind of road you can safely travel slow on, either. It was a harrowing experience that I hope never to repeat. At least our prayers were answered and sunny days followed.

Ironically -- or maybe not -- Saturn had replaced our wiper blades the last time we took the car in for servicing. I will be sure to tell them that when I bring the car back in a few days.

While we were gone, my daughter took care of our cats and played with them, but they are not talking to me yet. This has always been my experience with cats. After an absence of several days, they act snooty -- like they don't know us when we return. I guess we no longer smell like our house, for one thing.

It Almost Snowed Here

It snowed an inch at my sister's house in Atlanta last night. It snowed in areas around Huntsville, too. I thought we might get some snow here since the weather reports in the day went like this:

Morning - Winter Weather Possible

Noon - Snows of about 1 inch expected

Afternoon - Snows of 1 to 2 inches expected

Evening - 1 to 3 inches of snow expected in Huntsville

The reports were worse as the day went on. I was excited to think we might get some accumulations, but this morning -- nothing! At least nothing in Huntsville. I hear it snowed a bit around us and may snow more today. Even my sister in Atlanta got snow and their weather reports showed that it would probably pass them by.

The moral of the story here in the deep south: if snow is predicted, nothing will happen but rain. If snow is not predicted, expect accumulations. Ha!

New Persian Restaurant in Town

Yesterday, my daughter and I visited Elburz, the new Persian restaurant in Huntsville. She loves Basmati rice and Indian and Persian food. Our Lentil ("lintil" was how they spelled it on the menu) soup was interesting. Served warm not hot and with a little hot spice, it contained lentils in a chicken base with several spices I could not name. I liked it but I wished it had been hot (temperature-wise).

I had soup and salad. The fresh salad contained generous amounts of olives and the dressing would probably be praised by many but I did not like it.

My daughter was happy with her meat and rice dish. She said she'd like to learn how to cook this at home. We both liked the music and half expected a belly dancer to appear.

Mardi Gras at Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart celebrated Mardi Gras (the last Tuesday of the month) by throwing out stuff to shoppers. I met my brother and nieces and nephew there. We had a fun time and everyone came home loaded with necklaces. I am going to give mine out in our preschool church class. My cats like them, too, batting them around the floor.

Earlier my daughter and I went to Starbucks in Target. I tried the Hot Apple Cider with Caramel Creme. The drink was so hot that we had to wait 10 minutes before sipping it and even at that, I burnt my tongue. I asked this Starbucks if they had wireless access yet (as most other Startbucks are getting). They said that they were independently owned and did not plan on offering it - darn.

Speaking of Parasites

Just after getting my own computer cleared out, my brother called last night. His computer was swamped with parasites. He had acquired about 8 or more. Two of them were constantly changing his homepage back and forth. Others produced so many popup windows that his system would lock up sometimes. At least one of them would not let him run Ad-Aware (or go to the site to download it, that is).

My husband suggested my brother first set his IE browser to the highest security setting and I suggested that they turn off his modem for a little while, then run Bazooka and clear out as much as he could, then I suggested he follow that with running Ad-Aware, Spybot and maybe SpySweeper, then repeat as needed until it all got cleared out. Whew! He is still working on it right now.

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