I've been quiet on this blog for the last few days, and I really don't have that much to say tonight.  I attended the Council on Aging Board meeting on Tuesday, and we discussed our Fall Festival, among other things.  The lunch they served was delicious, but nothing momentous occurred.  We talked about Hurricane and Tropical Storm Evacuation, but the Council on Aging has a great disaster plan in place.  We ended up just chatting about what a non-event Tropical Storm Claudette ended up being. 

Today I had a meeting of the Panama City Centennial Committee.  I found it considerably less than productive, as meetings without agendas often are.  It sort of reminded me of Congress.  I don't know.

My life just inches along, sort of like the life of a snail or slug.  Saturdays continue to be the highlight of our week because Saturdays are Liza Time (TM), and she continues to amaze us at how much she's grown and changed week by week.  Our friends agree that she's no longer a toddler.  She's now a little girl.

ED

Beth has been working on this Dine Around project for a couple of months, at least, and the event was today.  This is something Hive Marketing (Link) out of Atlanta (aka daughter Susan) came up with for her mom's foundation that I thought was pretty clever.  First the backstory.

Beth has to raise a certain amount of money every year as matching funds so the foundation can give college scholarships to students and classroom grants to teachers.  They have a whole panoply of activies to raise money, including memberships, grants, and miscellaneous fundraisers.  Susan suggested they do a Dine Around.  Beth and her colleague, Janet, got ten popular restaurants to participate in this.  They printed up tickets, and for every ticket presented at the restaurants today, the foundation gets a dollar from the restaurant.  Beth and Janet distributed 10,000 tickets, and today they came into play.  They hope to make over a thousand dollars on this project, and that money will serve as match for several four-year college scholarships for poor, but deserving, students.  It's a very clever project, I think.

I couldn't use my Dine Around ticket today for lunch because I had a catered luncheon meeting.  I used them tonight, though, but just barely.  One of the participating restaurants was Applebee's (in three locations), and I ordered take-out dinner from there tonight.  Ordinarily we would have eaten leftovers or something, but we ordered out specifically because of Dine Around.  I called to place my order and picked it up with no hassle or confusion.  I paid, drove off, and finally remembered the Dine Around tickets as I was leaving the parking lot.  Since my goal is to go to my grave with all the body parts I was born with, I turned around, went back to the restaurant, and turned in two tickets.  Phew!

When I got home I told Beth that I had forgotten to turn in our tickets, and she got a look on her face that let me know I was in serious trouble.  When I told her I rectified the error, she laughed. 

Dinner from Applebee's was good, I still have all my parts, and the Bay Education Foundation is two dollars richer for my efforts.  Two dollars!  Sort out the irony for yourself.

ED

I checked our rain gauge this morning, and we got at least 6 inches of rain from Tropical Storm Claudette.  The gauge only goes up to 5 inches, but there's room for another inch of rain above that.  The gauge was full, so I figure we got at least 6 inches.  I haven't heard an official report.  We'll probably get more rain today.

ED

In my last post a couple of hours ago, I said Claudette hadn't gotten here.  Well, she has now, and the rain is really coming down.  We're not in danger of flooding or anything like that, but we're getting some heavy rains.  I haven't seen any flashes of lightening or heard any crashes of thunder, but we keep getting those bands of rain. 

We've gone through many hurricanes and tropical storms in our 36 years of marital bliss (come September 1st) and this one tonight is basically nothing.  Usually you can feel and smell tropical storms coming, but there was none of that this time.  Claudette came up way too fast, and she's not really all that tropical.  She's just a big rainstorm.

And, yes, we have a family evacuation plan if we need it.  Actually, we have several, depending on where the hurricane is heading. 

From the terror of the hurricanes, O Lord deliver us.

ED

Beth came home from the grocery store mid-morning with news that a tropical storm was going to hit us today.  WHAT!?  I immediately flipped on the Weather Channel and, sure enough, we had an unnamed tropical depression headed our way.  They predicted it would hit at 2:00 o'clock this afternoon (it didn't; in fact, at 8:45 PM, it still hasn't) but that surprised the heck out of me.  Most of the time we have days' notice about these things, and there is a decided tropical "feel" in the air for a day or two before a tropical storm or hurricane hits.  Not this time for either one.  We were taken totally by surprise, and that's ironic.

Today Catherine and Mike called us from the road on their way back from last night's Paul McCartney concert in Atlanta, and we told her about the storm.  Susan had mentioned something about it, but Cat had thought Susan was kidding.  Catherine loves tropical storms and hurricanes more than anybody I know, and she couldn't wait to get off the phone with us to check it out on her iPhone.  Tonight when they came to pick up Liza, Cat was eager to get home.  Beth asked her if she wanted to go to bed early after their exhausting weekend.  She said no; she couldn't wait to get home to tune into the Weather Channel to watch the breaking news about TS Claudette. 

Claudette doesn't have high winds, so we're not really worried.  We'll probably get a ton of rain, which the area can use, but it shouldn't really be much of a threat to us.  We're not really prone to flooding where we live.  I wanted to go ahead and make this post a little earlier than usual for fear we'll lose power, but so far we haven't seen much from bad-girl Claudette.

ED

I heard Paul McCartney live tonight singing "Back in the USSR," albeit via cell phone from my daughter, Catherine, who is at a live concert in Atlanta tonight.  I wasn't expecting that, and it kind of gave me a thrill.  She called at 10 o'clock Atlanta time, and the gates opened at 4:00.  She told me earlier today (around noon Atlanta time) that they were going to try to get to the venue at 3:30.  I asked her if the six of them had full coolers of beer, and she said coolers and food weren't allowed in; only blankets.  But she hastened to point out that the map on the web site showed 20 beverage locations and as many food outlets.  I know they're having a fantastic time, but I'm kind of glad I'm not there.  Concerts have never really been my thing, although I've been to several.  Beth and I are way too old for that.

But we're not too old to entertain Princess Liza.  Beth got up before I did today, and Liza was dressed in full princess costume by the time I got downstairs.  She was eating French toast that she had specifically asked me to cook--and NOT Grandma--because, frankly, mine is much better.  LOL.  Beth had to work some special event for her foundation until noon, so Liza and I were on our own this morning. 

I packed her up and took her to see Grandma Jane, Liza's great-grandmother.  We do that every Saturday, and Liza exercises a "ministry of hugs" to all the old ladies and men who live in Grandma Jane's retirement community.  The costume this morning stole the show, of course.  From there we went to visit Aunt Addie and Parrain.  They had never seen Liza in her princess costume, and they loved it.

We had a lunch party, which included, on the coffee table, fresh flowers from our garden, lighted candles, a cloth placemat, and ravioli out of a can served on a gorgeous paper plate.  She ate it with a cocktail fork.  Liza wanted to turn off all the lights so she could eat by candlelight, so we did.  After Beth came home, Liza wanted to decorate the house for Christmas for the next party.  Beth had a few Mardi Gras decorations in easy reach, so we went with those instead of Christmas.  When Liza woke up from her nap, the three of us had a dessert party.  It was cookies, candy, cheese and crackers, and popcorn served at the dining room table, which had a table cloth, centerpiece, and purple napkins and purple plastic plates.  She absolutely loved it.  Beth and I both ate so much at the dessert party that neither of us was very hungry for dinner.

Tonight Liza wanted to have a movie party, and that involved turning off all the lights downstairs and watching a Sesame Street DVD like we were in a theater.  It was one she had seen a hundred times, and one that we had seen a hundred times with her, but we went along with it.  She ate popcorn left over from the dessert party of this afternoon.  I checked on her a few minutes after I put her to bed tonight, and she was sound asleep.

Woodstock?  Shoot!  Paul McCartney?  Shoot!  Forty years later, the really hip generation wants Big Bird, Elmo, Grover, and Cookie Monster.  And a princess costume, of course.

ED

This weekend is the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival in up-state New York.  In March of 1969, the organizers were hoping for 25,000 paying customers.  By June they knew they've have 100,000, and that weekend in August they had more than 400,000 attendees.  I wasn't there, and I don't even remember if I knew it was going on until I saw reports of it on TV news, but Woodstock was one of the iconic events of my generation.

Of course there were a lot of iconic events that summer.  It was the summer of the Stonewall Rebellion that started the Gay Rights movement.  It was the summer of the landing by US astronauts on the moon.  It was the summer of Woodstock.

I heard part of a wonderful radio program on NPR this morning about Woodstock.  It was a total debacle as far as organized events are concerned, yet it still sticks out in my memory as THE event of peace, love, and music during the darkest days of the Vietnam War.

Ironically, all four of my children are in Atlanta this weekend for a concert by Paul McCartney on Saturday night.  I kind of doubt he was at Woodstock (but he might have been with the other Beatles), but I think it's wonderful that my children (2 daughters and 2 sons-in-law) are celebrating this weekend at that concert.  Granddaughter Liza is spending the weekend with us, and we're going to celebrate all weekend with dress-up parties.  She asked me tonight if I was going to dress up with her and Grandma, and I said probably not.  But, you know, in the spirit of Woodstock, that might change.

ED

I didn't get in my car today, and the only time I went outside was to get the mail this afternoon.  I don't have many days like this, but I had a good time reading all day.

ED

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I give you video of Kathy Griffin and Levi Johnston.  Griffin guest-hosted the Larry King Live show on CNN last night, and Levi was one of her guests.  This is one of the funniest YouTube videos I've seen, and it's pure satire, of which irony is the handmaiden.  Enjoy.                                                                                                            

I'm sorry I can't center these videos at the moment.  I think something is messed up with Xanga.  Oh, well.  At least you can watch it.

ED