How was YOUR weekend?

Mine was fine. Thanks for asking. Some of my co-workers had a rough time of it though. It wasn't quite as bad as the Monday we all got back to work and discovered that twelve of us had come down with a stomach virus over the previous weekend but this was pretty bad:

• One girl got kicked in the face by a horse. She's okay. It just grazed her but it could have been tragic. She has a big black eye.
• One girl's house and vehicles were damaged by a hail storm.
• Jen T. was acosted at her boyfriend's band's gig. It's on her blog.
• One of the men in the office was harassed by a very scary man at Wal-Mart in San Antonio. This was much scarier than I'm making it sound.
• One girl's weekend at the beach was ruined when half of the people staying at the cabin got a stomach bug.
• Fav File Clerk fell while trying to get into a boat and has a huge bruise on her leg.

Freaky deaky.

I Really Don't Know Clouds at All

When I was very young, I was fascinated by the weather. At the age of 7 or 8, I had a weather book. Even at that young age, I was a nerd. While my siblings were choosing toys after our bi-weekly grocery shopping trips, I would just as often choose a book.

Although I was terrified of the weather and spent a lot of time under the dining room table hiding from thunderstorms, I was amazed by the cloud formations in my book and by sleet and hail and tornadoes and hurricanes and frost and snowflakes. I would look at the sky and say, "That's cumulus." Or, "That's nimbus." Or, "That's strato-cumulo-nimbus." Pretty much, no one else cared, but I was amazed.

Last night, after posting those pictures of the thunderstorms, I was reminded of my old fascination. It also made me think how wonderful it would be if every night, there would be a nice little thunderstorm between 2:00 a.m. and 3:30 a.m.

Wouldn't that be heavenly?

Here are a couple of links to more storm photos:

• Severe Australia Weather (not just Australia, however)
• Weather Pix

Summer of 1972

Tonight I popped in my DVD of Pink Floyd Live in Pompeii. As I was reading the back of the case, I noticed the original film was made in 1972. A lot of the movie seemed like a parody of This is Spinal Tap which is a movie that is a parody about movies like Pink Floyd Live in Pompeii. My God, David Gilmore was a beautiful man. At this moment, that's all I remember about the DVD.

Perhaps the melancholy of coming down off a five day steroid high is finally setting in or it was the right time for me to experience a rush of nostalgia. The summer of 1972 was not a good one. I was 17 years old and that summer we would lose a close childhood friend in a motorcycle accident and my cousins, siblings and I would lose our first close relative, my grandfather, to cancer. We lost our innocence in a big way that summer.

Typical of this family, however, there is a funny story that goes along with taking my grandfather to the hospital from the home to which he would never return. We would return there one more time to clean things out when my grandmother moved in with my aunt. It was the house of so many Sunday dinners and Saturday afternoon crab boils and was always filled with Cajun music (unless wrestling was on), laughter and the smells of a roux cooking or chicken frying.

As my mom and her two sisters were leading grandpa down the wooden sidewalk toward the cars where we were waiting, I was watching trying not to think of anything in particular. Suddenly, I noticed a hestitation by my grandfather. "Oh my God," I thought, "Something is happening." I heard my aunt say, "Daddy, keep going, we're almost there." But, grandpa was saying something in French which no one could understand. My mom said, "Daddy?" Then, she started laughing. Then, my aunts started laughing. Grandpa had lost so much weight, his pajama bottoms had fallen down around his ankles and he couldn't move. However, in his weakened state, he was no match for his younger, stronger daughters who were relentlessly trying to drag him down the walk.

I'm glad that's the memory of that day that has stayed with me most vividly all these many years.

A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

Bad weather here tonight. I hear the thunder and I see the lightning. Someone sent me these pictures so I thought I'd share. (These were supposedly taken somewhere in the Mid-West.)



*Storm*

*Storm*

*Storm*

*Storm*

*Storm*

Laurie's Mini-Mini Reviews

Garden State - Brilliant

Closer - Brutal

Sideways - Brooding *

* Sideways gets extra credit, however, for the reference to Confederacy of the Dunces.

No Jive Train for Me Tonight

No Jive Train for me tonight:

• One sister out of town
• Other sister not in the mood
• Fear of bumping formerly injured shoulder
• Shouldn't drink on the Prednisone anyway

Instead:

• Watched Sideways
• Watched Closer
• Watched Garden State

Mini-reviews tomorrow. Just like Ebert's only worse.

Disregard the Previous Post

One of my jobs at the law firm where I work is to review every fax that comes into the office and assure the prompt delivery and handling of urgent matters. While several of the faxes during the day are of the urgent variety, the majority are routine. The firm receives hundreds of faxes a day.

Yesterday, I received a fax with the line typed in bold across the top of the letter, *Please disregard the previous letter.* With faxes constantly pouring in, I'm supposed to know exactly which letter this dip-wad is talking about. There was no explanation of which letter the writer was referring to, not a date, not subject matter, nothing.

That would be like me telling you guys, *Please disregard the previously written post. I was drunk.*

Friday Night Standup - Dennis Miller

• A new poll shows that Senator Kerry's support in the South is strongest amongst blacks. Kerry's appeal to Southern blacks is obvious. He is a white man who lives far, far away.
• A recent police study found that you're much more likely to get shot by a fat cop if you run.
• I still feel pangs of remorse over an insidious habit I've had since I was a teenager. About three times a week, I attend estate auctions and make insulting, low-ball bids for prized heirlooms until I'm asked to leave.
• I'm like Bush, I see the world more like checkers than chess.
• If some unemployed punk in New Jersey, can get a cassette to make love to Elle McPherson for $19.95, this virtual reality stuff is going to make crack look like Sanka.
• Police in Washington D.C. are now using cameras to catch drivers who go through red lights. Many congressmen this week opposed the use of the red light cameras incorrectly assuming they were being used for surveillance at local brothels.
• President Bush gave his first-ever presidential radio address in both English and Spanish. Reaction was mixed, however, as people were trying to figure out which one was which.
• Washington, DC is to lying what Wisconsin is to cheese.
• What is guilt? Guilt is the pledge drive constantly hammering in our heads that keeps us from fully enjoying the show. Guilt is the reason they put the articles in Playboy.
• As for what many are calling racial profiling in the aftermath of September 11th, well, get ready to be pissed off, you ACLU-Fucking-Morons, we're dealing with a massive threat and limited manpower, so, you want them to check everybody out equally? Sure, fine okay, but let's at least compromise and put the Swedish dwarf a little further down the list than the Iraqi explosives expert carrying a Belgian passport with more eraser marks on it than Kid Rock's trig final.
• There's a lot of differing data [about global warming], but as far as I can gather, over the last hundred years the temperature on this planet has gone up 1.8 degrees. Am I the only one who finds that amazingly stable? I could go back to my hotel room tonight and futz with the thermostat for three to four hours and I would not detect that difference.
• Sure, the lion is the king of the jungle, but, airdrop him into Antarctica and he's just a penguin's bitch.
• And quit bringing up our forefathers and saying they were civil libertarians. Our founding fathers would have never tolerated any of this crap. For God's sake, they were blowing peoples' heads off because they put a tax on their breakfast beverage. And it wasn't even coffee.
• You know there is a problem with the education system when you realize that out of the 3 R's only one begins with an R.

Damn Steroids - Part 2

I'll be 50 in September and I've always said that when things start sagging, I won't be embarrassed to have a little nip, nip here and a little tuck, tuck there and it won't be a secret. If I'm going to spend that kind of money, it won't be done on a secret trip to the Caribbean. I'm taking out ads in the newspaper and putting up a billboard on Dowlen Road.

In the past, my only fear was that I might eventually end up looking like Priscilla Presley (seen her lately? Oh, my!) or Joan Rivers. I have a new one to add to that list: Burt Reynolds.

Damn Steroids

It's almost 3:00 a.m. and what better than to be checking e-mail because of one of the less enjoyable side-effects of steroids, restless sleep. The good news is my curve ball is coming along nicely and I've added 5 mph to my fast ball. (I stole the baseball thing from Wanda Sykes when she was on the Daily Show earlier this month.)

I also had the following thought (via e-mail conversation earlier this evening) which may or may not be as insightful as I think it is:

• I always wanted to be a Madam. They get pick of the litter, so to speak. After all, Miss Kitty always got Matt Dillon. Oh, they did it. You know they did it...a lot. That's why Doc was so cranky. He and Festus were sitting down there in the Long Branch arguing all the time because they knew Matt was upstairs gettin' some Kitty.

*With thanks to Wang Chi who said this poster was perfect for Miss New Orleans...Ummm...tequila...*