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ARCHIVES: June 1-7, 2003

Search My Site

I found a good and free "search this site" service. I think I am going to like this, but will have to try it for a few days.

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There's Still Some Common Sense Left in this Country -Thank Goodness

Reading the paper this morning made me glad that our country still has some common sense:

1. Courts rule that cell phone users can keep their numbers when switching services.

2. Cyclists can continue across the intersection after stopping while the light is still red (in Tennessee).

3. Woman has to uncover her face to get a driver's license. (No sense in a photo I.D. if your head and face are covered.)

Dandelion Sleeps

Dandelion snores when he sleeps. He sometimes covers his face, too. Right now, he is sleeping on a blanket on the sofa, snoring away (reminds me of my husband). I snuck out and took this photo. He looks very smooth on one side because my husband took advantage of the moment to brush him. (Click to enlarge.)

Speaking of brushing, our 3 cats have very different feelings about it. Dandelion likes a little brushing. He will sometimes raise his paw so my daughter can brush under his arm. Otherwise, he is finicky with everyone else, usually trying to run away after a few seconds of brushing.

Buzzy is crazy for brushing. He loves it. He begs for it. If you pick up a brush, he is right there at your feet. Since he has the most fur -- a rich, long-haired, double-thick coat, this is a good thing. He has the least problem with hairballs, though.

Muddy wants nothing to do with being brushed. He's too energetic to sit still long enough for it. If he is sound asleep, he will tolerate it a little. Generally, we have to hold him down (which involves a lot of complaining and hissing) or follow him around the house. In fact, I think Muddy almost likes brushing as long as he can walk down the hall, jump on the bed or move every few seconds. This is hard on the back, though -- to bend over and follow a little cat all over the place.

Mosquito-Bitten

It was drizzling and 72 degrees early this morning (according to my outdoor thermometer). I walked with an umbrella. The nice thing was the greenway being a deep beautiful green and the skies were free of smog and haze (just a little fog on the mountains). The bad thing was that it felt something like a steam bath and the mosquitoes were out. I got bitten several times and deeply regretted not using insect repellent today, especially since the West Nile Virus is here. I continue to regret that with every scratch.

Shrimp Heaven

It was shrimp heaven last night. My husband and I (who normally try to skip supper or eat very lightly early in the evening) could not resist the lure of a Friday seafood night at Meteor Buffet. They had bacon-wrapped shrimp (my favorite), sweet and sour shrimp, fried shrimp, pepper seafood (with lots of shrimp in it), butter seafood (with lots of shrimp), cold peel and eat shrimp, coconut shrimp (also good - not too sweet), spicy shrimp and other seafood -- crab legs, fish, oysters, scallops, calamari and numerous other side dishes including corn, Brussels Sprouts, green beans, chicken, several kinds of soups, Mayfield ice cream, fruits and a salad bar. The place is huge. This is my favorite restaurant these days.

Afterwards, we drove to Krispy Kreme since it had the irresistible "Hot Now" sign flashing. My husband wanted doughnuts. I was too full to eat any so I saved mine for the next day. I got their special of the month -- a creme-filled doughnut covered with malted chocolate frosting. Um-m-m-m-m, just ate it for breakfast today ... good thing we don't live too close to that "Hot Now" sign.

Do You Believe in Ghosts?

My Dad sent this cute site. The spelling stinks so much that I wonder if the creator speaks some language other than English, but the point gets across. This may not work for everyone at a place of business - and it may only work on Windows computers.

Favorites List

MedicMom put up a list of 100 things about herself. That inspired me to create a favorites section.

Favorite Foods:

1. Chocolate (this applies to any food with chocolate in it - ice cream, cookies, etc.)

2. Shrimp (and most seafood - crab, scallops, fake crab)

3. Hot buttered popcorn

4. Pasta

5. Cheese

Favorite Color: Gray -- a deep, rich gray (Gray contrasts so well with other colors - blue, red, etc., but I love it just for itself.)

Favorite Books: Sci-Fi, Fantasy Adventure, Romance  (All preferably with happy endings)

Favorite Hobbies - Walking, Hiking, Photography, Reading, Cats, Computing

Favorite Music - I have a large range of interests -- Currently, I most enjoy techno remixes of old popular songs, but I like rock-n-roll (old and new), new age (love Enya) and a touch of country as in Shania Twain.

Favorite Restaurants: Oriental Places - such as Tai food or good Chinese buffets

Favorite Movie of All Time: The First Star Wars Movie

Botanical Garden Newsletter

I was relieved to see my Honorable Mention printed in the Botanical Garden Newsletter. It was gratifying to see someone somewhere validating what I had told my friends and family about my entry in the photography contest since the Huntsville Times had chosen to ignore me. I wrote the Times a "letter to the editor" and hope to see it printed in the next few days. Dare I hope they might even print my photo?

Perfect Day

My definition of a perfect day: (Yesterday was such a day.)

A perfect day consists of a rain-free morning for walking, good conversations, no big problems online (making my job with The Golden Gate Genealogy Forum and AOL much easier -- if a bit quieter), knowing my family is safe, and especially, no obligations to be anywhere-- having plenty of time to read, compute, chat (phone or e-mail), do chores and stay in the house. Working from home is heaven. It was blissfully peaceful.

Garlic

My husband, Richard, planted garlic last year and harvested it last week, then let it dry and took much of it to work where he handed it out to friends. I brought some out to the greenway to give away. We keep plenty for ourselves, but it was a big crop this year.

This is a good, mild garlic that he says has been grown here for several generations and mutated (as garlic does) to adapt to Huntsville's soil, developing its own unique regional flavor. Richard is very proud of it -- me, too, for he gardens better than I ever did.

I asked him how to grow it since a couple of people told me that they tried unsuccessfully. He says to plant it around Halloween using a single clove, blunt side down/sharp side up. It can be harvested on Memorial Day (here in Alabama, that is).

Muddy is One Year Old Today

He has claimed the top of the kitchen table as his own, likes to hear his voice echo in the kitchen or bathroom and intentionally goes into those rooms to meow with more variations than any cat I've known. He has a grudge against closed doors and cries at them until they open. His energy is limitless, it seems. He sees one of us coming and darts down the hall in the hopes that we will chase him. Sometimes he chases us.

He is a perfect balance for our 13 and 14 year old cats. He likes to run circles around the older ones but they all get along most of the time (it took a while for them to adjust to the new hyperactive upstart kitten). They are quiet and like to sit in my lap while Muddy zooms everywhere to burn off energy. They are big for a housecats -- one is solid gray with a white bowtie and the other is orange and white -- both elegant, pretty cats. We have unusually beautiful cats in this household. Here's the only picture I have of them all together.

My Three Cats | Muddy Mewing | Muddy's Pedigree | Most Recent Cat Pictures

Satellite Picture of Your House

This site shows a satellite picture of your house. Click on the map to narrow it down or click on "Advanced Find" at the top right of the page and type in any U.S. address. I found my house as it looked in 1998.

TerraServer -Satellite Photos

I was able to save a  picture of my neighborhood. Click for  larger image.

Planning My Parents' 50th Anniversary Party

Thanks to Little Sister B. prodding us into action, we are getting the party in gear and making the arrangements. It's hard to believe they've been married this long -- but since I am the firstborn of 7 children, I ought to believe it. It's true -- time flies by faster the older you get. Someone on TV said it well yesterday -- to a 5-year-old child, 5 minutes is like a day, to an adult, a day seems more like 5 minutes. Here's a site I did for them:

Mom and Dad

Print a Directory on Windows

I've been using this ever since I saw it on TechTV. It's a free program that prints a windows directory, saves it to a text file or in other formats. It allows for several settings so you can print all of the details, just some or just the names of the files.

This is great for printing song lists. I could create a printed catalog of any part of my hard drive. It even reaches into subdirectories.

PrintDir 3.1

Weather Prediction

We bought a new hose for the front yard. I offered to water the front yard plants every day and so I dutifully went out to do my chores yesterday and, yep, it rained after all that. Argh!

Have you ever noticed how bad TV weatherman are at getting things exactly right? Walking  every day, I usually take a look at the radar before I head out. Watching the radar screen will be more helpful than listening to someone's forecast. So often, rain (or snow) is predicted and nothing happens. The rain dries up, the snow storm changes direction slightly and the predicted bad weather never happens. Or it is just the opposite - bad weather hits when nothing was predicted. Huntsville is so large that one side of town gets rains while the other side stays bone dry.

Seems to me that, when going for a walk, a glance at the radar and stepping outside to look at the sky is the best way to determine local weather.

I think TV weather people prefer to predict bad weather. They are remembered better for predicting bad weather than if they predict good weather (no matter what happens) and people usually forget the wrong predictions. Some weather forecasters like to project a more dramatic high  in the summer or a more dramatic low in the winter so that people will quote them and talk about them more -- thus, getting some good publicity to up those ratings.

It's not if you get it right or not, it's whether you get the ratings or not by being more interesting. (They pretend accuracy is important, but I don't think it really is because they know people forget.)

Huntsville Times Faulted

When I asked the Botanical Garden about my picture being excluded from printing, they told me that they checked and had submitted all 6 names and photos of those who placed in their contest. They told me that the Huntsville Times decided to omit my name and my picture due to spacing limitations.

Did it ever occur to the Times that printing only 2 of the 3 Honorable Mention photos was cruel? In the contest, three people placed and three people received Honorable Mention. Only 5 of the 6 photos were printed in the paper. I could say a lot of things right now, but I am trying to keep this site g-rated. I guess all I can do at this point is write them a letter.

Cat Visor

A.L. was so sweet this morning on the greenway. She gave me a beautiful, light-weight cat visor. I was always forgetting to bring sunglasses since I leave on my walk before the sun comes out and return after it is right in the eyes. The visor will be wonderful. It's unusually comfortable.   Quiet Evening at Home Our children were fun to be with yesterday. I was still upset over the Botanical Garden not printing my photo in the paper and being with the children was cheering. I went to church wishing I could take my husband and move out into the wilderness to become hermits, sick of all people and wanting nothing to do with anybody (except via the Internet), but I left church in a great mood. We have a nice bunch of children and adults, too.

Sunday afternoon and evening was perfect -- a quiet night at home without having to go anywhere or do anything. I can never get enough of evenings like this. If only every night could be free of obligations to be somewhere!

Bullfrog Sounds

I took my little pencam/recorder out on the greenway at dawn. I stood by the creek -- looking every direction and not seeing another human in sight -- a great feeling! It is a noisy place, but amid the birds, waterfall and distant traffic, I got a pretty good recording of a bullfrog.

Bullfrog - (just a few seconds of sound)

Olive Garden

It has been a long time since I ate at The Olive Garden. My husband and I went there yesterday for lunch. The new, higher prices were a bit of shock. The bread and salad are an extra fee, I think. I ordered a regular lunch item from the menu with water. My husband ordered a regular dish with a Sprite. Our first clue something was not quite right was when the waitress asked if we wanted breadsticks and salad (instead of just serving them as they usually do with the items we ordered). Ordering just two entrees and one drink along with the salad and breadsticks, tax and tip, we ended up paying $36 - and this was only lunch!

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