"Ha! Har yall dune?"

This post comes to you from a hotel room in Manchester, Tennessee. It's about an hour south of Nashville. I have a job here that started on Thursday. I was supposed to finish on Saturday and go home but I had some parts problems that can't be resolved until I get a FedEx delivery tomorrow. So I got to spend the weekend here.
It hasn't been too bad, except for the tornado. One touched down north of here and took out some houses, but all we got was horrific rain and wind. I was working in the hangar. The chief pilot came over from their little house next door and allowed as how they were evacuating the base, and suggested I do the same. I concurred. I got in my car and drove to Wal-Mart, which is one of the preferred places of refuge. By the time I got there the worst was over, so I went and had dinner instead.
We are enjoying reading the blogs some of you are posting. As for the rest of y'all, get on the blog wagon! We can't always get a hold of you on the phone to catch up on what you are doing, and besides, this is free. Our computer is standing by.

The News Drought Is Over

Well, it was quiet here until this morning. Yesterday was a typical Saturday for us: workout at the gym, work in the yard, dance in the evening. When we got home Elaine said her knee was bothering her, but she took a hot soak in the tub and went to bed. About 3:30 Puck started whining to go out. She got up to let him out but when she got to the kitchen her knee was really paining her. Now, we have learned that sometimes when Elaine experiences severe pain she gets sick and light headed. She felt that coming on so she sat down and went to put her head between her knees. The next thing she knew she was laying flat on the floor and Puck was licking her face. She was moaning and hollering loud enough to wake me up. I rushed in to the kitchen and found her laying there holding her head and saying her knee hurt something terrible.
I said "Honey, I can't see anything wrong with your knee but you have a HUGH cut over your right eye!"
She went "What?" and then kind of passed out.
In a few seconds she came back around and I told her,"I'm calling 911". She started to argue with me about that, but I had visions of Natasha Richardson in my head (she died, you know), so I called them. They got here right quick (it's nice to live a block from the fire station), took her vitals, noted with alarm her low BP and heart rate (which we assured them is quite normal for her), immobilized her head and neck, and packed her off to the ER, with me in hot pursuit.
The ER staff all tsk-tsked about her BP and slow pulse, which we again explained, and decided to do a CT scan, just in case. When that came back clear, the doc stitched up her head and we came home.
The knee is fine.
So now I guess we must acknowledge that we ARE getting all stove up and give out. At least a little. Hate to, though. We are having so much fun.
Elaine wanted to mention that we made a rubarb pie today and had Kara, Nate and Michelle over for dinner. The show, after all, must go on.

The News Drought Continues

It was a very quiet week here in Meridian, our home town. Work, sleep, repeat. We have had a few mildly warm days, just enough to give us spring fever. So today it is raining/snowing. Makes a body want to burrow back under the covers.
Elaine has been busy finishing an old quilt for one of her friends. It is the second one she's done. The first was a quilt her mother had started serveral years ago and never finished. It is quite a challenge because the makers of these tops didn't have today's modern labor saving gadgets for making the piece cutting faster and, as a side benefit, more accurate. They were done pretty much by eye. As a result they are, quite often, neither flat nor square. Makes quilting and binding a lot more difficult. I think she enjoys the challenge. It is probably similar to the charge I get from breathing new life into an old broken down piece of equipment. One of life's simple pleasures.
The next ward activity we have scheduled is Prom. The theme is "A Night To Remember". Now, doesn't that take you back? People are starting to get fired up about it. We are encouraging everyone to dress prom appropriate, for whatever era they came from. I can't wait to see what the come up with. The Bishop has Rock Band on his kid's X-Box so he wants to have a competition to see who's best. We are finding that there are quite a few who are willing to take up the challenge. Picture, if you will, a couple of fifty-something High Priests getting down to Led Zepplin. It will truly be a Night To Remember. Or try to forget.

Play Day

I had an install down in Laughlin, Nevada this last week. Got to enjoy a little sunny 70 degree weather and watch all the sunbirds gamble away their children's inheritance. I felt like a kid there; the only non-grey people were the hotel and casino staff. Not like Vegas. I spent one night there. It was jumping, like always. Not too much evidence of a recession on the Strip. Lots of people and lots of traffic.
Saturday dawned clear and cold here in the valley so we jumped at the chance to go cross country skiing. There was some pretty deep snow up above Idaho City and not much of a trail. The sun shining on the snow made it really sticky in spots. After slugging through it for a couple hours we'd had enough so we eased back down to the car and grabbed some lunch. We had just enough time after we got back home to take a shower and a quick nap, and then it was time to go dancing. Mambo this time. Needless to say, by nine-thirty we were pretty much thrashed. Life in the fast lane. We feel compelled to get as much of this kind of stuff done before we get all stove up and give out.

Dog Reasoning

Puck and I were home by ourselves the other night watching "Dog Whisperer" and there was a clip of a Golden Retriever catching a thrown tennis ball. We had been playing a rousing came of "catch Snoopy" with one of his favorite stuffed toys. When he saw the clip he promptly dropped Snoopy and went right over to the laundry room and stared at his tennis ball, which was in the throwing stick stuck up on the coat rack, and started whining. So not only is he aware of what is on the TV screen, but he makes the connection between the image and what goes on in his life. Cool, huh? We're going to try to get him into some AP classes next semester.
Elaine has been working 13 hour shifts the last three days. St Lukes is seriously understaffed and some people think that just because they are critically ill and can't breathe they have to go to the hospital. Pretty inconsiderate, if you ask me.
Kevin goes to SEER school tomorrow. That's where they drop 'em in the swamp and they have to survive on snakes and bugs for a couple of weeks, then they are "captured" and they spend a week as a POW. They are not allowed to talk about the experience, but most of them loose a bunch of weight. Check out their blog for a picture of an Alabama snow storm.
We heard last week that Darrel and Latassa are having another girl. When they told Emma, she folded her arms and declared that SHE wanted a baby bruver.