ok, so last night i downloaded 4 months of blogs...working backwards.....my goal is to have a hard copy just in case......i sat up late rereading, especially the spain trip.....the entries were so hurried....now that time has passed i wish that i had not rushed about so much...that i had forced us to sit and just look and take-in and enjoy......but we wanted to see it all, in the lack-of-faith manner that travelers have...i might never be back so i had better pack it in now.......i so want to go somewhere this january...just don't know where yet.....

ok, so i am listening to bob dylan singing forever young with bruce springstein......that song always makes me cry.......i have to take scw back into town soon.......then help ccw with her spelling......then watch the french movie i bought....the closet...with daniel autiel...it is supposed to be in french with english subtitles.....but i have my doubts as the cover is all in english.......i heard on the news this morning that the french are seeing a major dip in wine sales, and that they are blaming the boycott of french products because of the war....i think not.....i blame the aussies......they are going great guns with wine promotions...we have mostly aussie, new zealand, and oregonian wines on our list...just a few from france or california.......because the price and taste match up just fine and dandy.....the french outpriced themselves on many things years ago.......i guess they had a captive market......even the success of california vineyards did not cause the french to back off too much on price.....maybe the aussies will..........

ok, so it is official, i have been blogging for over 1 year...almost daily........i still enjoy it.....maybe not as much when i realize that i self-censor for fear of hurting feelings.....but i self-censor in most aspects of my life......it was only my late mother-in-law who never saw the need to watch what she said....she had no un-uttered thoughts......but then, i do not remember most of the things she said to me in a positive light.....i would hate to think that those who read this blog would remember what i had to say negatively........

ok, so today is maundy thursday, and i plan to go to church tonight......the last supper fo christ with his disciples was on the thursday before easter sunday........it is always a touching service......easter has snuck up on me this year........despite its late date.....i have a new jacket to wear to church on sunday, though the skirt i intended to wear with it may not fit.......whup.....i have very pleasant memories of childhood easters...my parents would always wait to buy spring/summer church shoes for me until we went to cleveland to celebrate with my mother's parents.......we always went to the same store....which sold poll parrot shoes......the store had a parrot, by the way.....one year i had orange patent leather shoes......oh so 60's.........alas, this year i have no need for orange patent leather shoes.....i wear good shoes so infrequently (only on some sundays and never when i have enough tan on my legs to get by wearing sandals......) that i will probably wear the same pair of black pumps until i die.........ecw has my permission to bury me in them...or rather cremate me in them.......

ok, so acw showed up at home this evening....to get his laundry.....and to pick up a bite to eat..........lord, i miss that boy...so bright.........so interesting to talk to.........when he was cayle's age we read moby dick, aloud....she still reads books with 1 line per page...........

ok, passover begins today...not normally a holiday on my radar, but this year is different.....for starts, one of my new cooks is a converted jew (probably the only one living in Mitchellsburg as we speak)......he converted when he married his ex-wife, and has not reconverted since she left him and moved to china (not a good health move.......) so he keeps kosher, at least so far and not eating pork, and shellfish, etc........in d.c., i stopped at a giant food store to buy dessert and appetizers for dinner.....and saw my first ever big-bang passover food display...whoa......more than i ever dreamed was available for this holy day........as i am unsure just which herbs are bitter, and because i wasn';t totally paying attention this morning on npr when the first sandwich (the hil-el matzoh with apple and bitter herbs...?) was being discussed......i will not be doing the passover thing today........this is pure laziness......as i fixed corned beef and cabbage on st patricks day, and i am not irish ...years ago ecw and i attended a sadar meal with sally and robb dine-fitch (the artist jim dine's half-bro) ...it was very interesting.......i believe robb read the passages from the holy book......but that is all i remember.
this morning when i trudged out to the road to get the paper at 6:50 am, the yard looked so beautiful, i wished that i could linger, with coffee, on the deck and just take it all in.......the perennials have taken over so much of the bedding square-footage that there is less and less to do each year when it comes to mulch...just the weeding of the wild onions.......all that is left is the back of the house, around scw's fish pond......which lacks fish at this time.......

ok, so i have had 2 moments to think about this book, and i have a clear notion of how it will not play out on my life...for starts....the wife decides to give her husband dibs on the house if he will agree to host a wedding party for the daughter who marries unexpectedly in thailand........that will never happen...as i will not leave my garden without kicking and screaming...............i do not care who lives in my house, but nobody else gets my garden as long as i am breathing........

ok, so i just finished revenge of the middle aged woman........a british comedy/tragedy/light-hearted look at a woman who gets divorced and fired from her job as a book editor on the same day....well...not just the same day...but metaphysically so......at one point in this book i sat on the back deck and sobbed.........and i am not really sure why...something one fo their children said...or ex-girlfriend of the son said after her suicide........anyway.......this book is similar to bridgit jones diary in tone, but for the subject matter.....very british........semi-predictable ending.........hugh grant will certainly star as the husband who leaves......he is reaching that age bracket.......now just who will be the spurned wife? maybe emma thompson?............

ok, so i am amazed that kathy had already given away all of jeff's stuff.....the house was devoid of jeff.......i donot know if i could so quicky divest myself of spouse........i do not know....whther it is easier when they leave or die.....having read this book........i just do not know.......

ok, so i just had a call from a friend asking if i/we were available to cater an atypical funeral........many thoughts here...like what is a typical funeral.......and why were we the first choice>.............i cannot hink about work just yet................

ok, so today i helped kathy clark to move, along with 6-7 other people from the boyle county schools or our sunday school class.........she is moving first to a furnished house, the home of a church fellow who has moved to mcdoweel place......very 60's decor......and by may she will move to the house she bought...ann yankey's house on boone trail.......i have been to this house many times when the boys were little...our sitter margaret jean mcguire lived next door...when she went to the races...during keenelands' fall or spring meet, she woulkd ask her next-door neighbor ann yankey to watch the boys...she would warn me to polish their shoes....... all this ended when scw went to montessori at age 3 ...and ann yankey committed suicide sometime afterwards......kathy has not mentioned this...the living in ahouse where someone has commited suicide......but given all that she has been through she may not mind at all.......anyway...kathy clark's idea of moing was to have people arrive invehicles and take stuff out of closets...into the vehicles...drive to the new house, and take things out and put them away...........not much in boxes.....casey was there with his hardly clad girlfirend who was not introduced..........he has a phenomanal amount of khakis and cotton buttondowns and ties..........in fact...i was amazed at the volume of clothing we moved for kathy for just 1 month........and ecw tells me have have too many pieces of clothing.....also there were the youngs......anne and her husband...who imet when we were all pregnant with our first-borns....in lamaze class......18 years ago.......so many years ago.....i mulched 1.5 truckloads of mulch today and yesterday.....the last part will have to wait..........i am so sore.......and overwhelmed...by kathy's need to move and by her stoic approach to the move.......i do not think that i would be so composed if i was moving my household after 20 years of marriage..and my spouses death......ironically...i am reading a book entitled....the revenge of the middle-aged woman...by elizabeth buchan...the story of a 40-something woman who loses her spouse and her job as a book reviewer the same day...........i do not know if it is trite or just entertaining just yet.........

ok, so last night i watched impromptu, a film about the connection between george sand and frederic chopin.....george sand was a baroness who left her spouse and unhappy marriage to write novels...she was ahead of her time in that she preferred to wear trousers, to smoke cigars, and to love freely and often (scandalous in that day and age....) in this film she persued chopin shamelessly, not out of lust, but out of sincere awe for his music.....george sand once wrote.....we cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the whole book into the fire........she lived fully in a time when most women were bound by convention to their duty as wives, daughters, and mothers........it was her motherhood that broke off her relationship with chopin......he began to fall in love with her daughter after they had been together 9 years........another telling quote.......guard well within yourself that treasure...kindness.....know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to aquire without meanness.........she sounds like a woman i would like to know.......

ok, so i want to tell you all (all 3-4) about the things i didn';t buy on vacation...because i was being prudent...and because i so much want to recover my chair and loveseat.....at hillwood in the gift shop there were at least 3 precious strings of amber beads.........just sweet and lovely.......and each over $100...now that is not a bad price for amber beads.......but somehow i wasn't moved to get out the debit card.......i stil regret that i didn't buy a similar strand years ago at the cincinnati art museum........one of these days...........

ok, so now that i have been home a few hours, let me fill you in on some of the trip highlights.....#1 the orchid greenhouse at hillwood.......just fabulous, with over 200 blooming plants..the scent was just breathtaking.....literally........#2 the gardens at williamsburg......especially the one with the topiary and clipped box edging.......#3 the house at monticello.......just perfect in proportion, decoration, views, simplicity.........there are few historic homes that one can say.....i could live here...i do believe i could move into monticello.........#4 the maryland crab cake i had at the irish pub in anapolis.......though it would have tasted better with a small glass of guinness, but we were going to tour a college and i felt that beer might set the wrong mood.......#5 the admissions office at st johns.....we walked inthe door and the firts person to speak to us looked quite like betty poland.......scw says not, but she was strikingly similar in coloration, height, hairstyle........and demeanor.....#6....the lunch at hillwood cafe......a lovely room done in peach/pink walls with white woodwork that accented a wallsize canvas (probably russian) of a peasant picnic.........i had a stuffed cabbage roll with a salad and black bread........with baklava for dessert......#7the garden center at monticello where we bought heritage seeds for both flowers and vegetables.......now all we have to do is to get them to grow.........#8 the 11-hour sleep we got at charlottesville...we went to bed at 9:00 as we were so tired, and we didn't wake up til 8:00 the next morning.......#9 the chinese dinner with nick and roseanne......with chinese beer and hot and sour soup...and lo mein...and good conversation.......#10 the short time at the beach....watching ccw and scw playing in the frigid sand.......#11 (last one) watching scw enjoy his new role as camera man......now all he has to do is figure out how to transfer to dvd........

ok, so we are back from this break...and i am so glad......the weather was rainy and 35 or so the entire 6 days we were gone.......i wore basically the same outfit for most fo the time...just because it was warm.......we saw uva through the car window....as it was dark by the time we got to town....and the next morning it was rainy and cold.......monticello is always a pleasure..then on to williamsburg, where we opted not to pay for admission, because the youngest in our group had been so impatient and disinterested at monticello that we felt it would be a complete waste of cash.........and that is how it worked out...we were in the restored area no less than 25 minutes before she was bored and asking when we were going to eat again.......we did see the wren building at w&m...and looked around........on to chincoteague seashore, where cayle took off her shoes and socks, ran into the water, trotted back to the car, put back on her shoes and socks, then proceeded to play in the waves and sand despite the windchill of sub-freezing temp with her brother, whose lips were blue by the time he was made to come back to the car...he was determined to build a sandcastle...and build he did.........on to anapolis....where we had a bonafide tour of st. john's college.......of every building and nook and cranny...it does seem a place for someone who would like to learn greek and read the great books.......we had a marvelous visit with ecw's oldest brother nick and his wife roseanne..he showed no sign of his brain tumor....and has had a recent checkup that seemed promising despite the presence of the tumor.....he is planning to retire in november.......he sent back 7 rose bushes and and assortment of boxwood and perennials for a 'cottage garden' in my side yard.....scw and i spent a day in georgetown area of dc......saw hillwood estate, and marjorie merriweather post's russian collections and gardens.............lovely........so did i have a good time? it was so good to get away.....i did read a great deal of my john adams book.......and found out a bit of timely trivia......on his second voyage to france to serve as ambassador, the boat left him and his two sons off in northern spain, and he was forced to travel by mule through towns like burgos and bilbao on his way to the french frontier......he actually wrote and posted a letter to his wife from bilbao......... i missed acw on this trip.....i have never before gone without him.....he is as good a traveler as scw......but it is over. and now i am home.....i am going to get a load of mulch after i leave scw off at the act test......and i plan to spend the next 2 days totally devoted to my garden.......

ok, so i was worng about the navaho connection. lori prestewa was hopi, and her entire tribe mourns her passing.........the hopi nation lives close to the navaho nation.......i have been to arizona many times to visit my uncle ernie in cottonwood...p.o. box #1....he had lived there so long...........he was a good friend of barry goldwater, and my aunt ginger tells of meeting goldwater in ernie's front room, in her bathing suit covered by a towel.......i have both hopi and navaho jewelry upstairs, given to me by my arizona relatives.....though i never wear silver...it does not suit me......i have a very nice hopi ring and bracelet that i will sometime give my daughter, who doesnot seem to care about what suits........i digress.......

ok, so i cannot sleep and so i have paged through the list of war dead.....kind of like the wall that is the viet nam memorial.........first of note is pfc lori prestewa, of tuba city, arizona....this is the navaho reservation.....so lori was surely a female navaho.......so sad when our warriors are women......also of note was pfc ruben estrella-sota.......an 18 year old from el paso texas.......i understand that hyphenation is commonplace in the latin community, but i wept at the thought of an 18-year old hyphenated boy being killed in combat........i feel so old and these soldiers were so young......

ok, so the cake did not actually fall, but it did cause quite a stir before it was cut.....the mother of the bride approached my partner at one point and said.....have i had too much wine or is that cake leaning? and jerry leaned to the side and said ...leaning? no..............when the cake was cut and dissassembled, it was clear that the baker forgot to put columns in all four corners of the bottom layer......hence the lean when 3 more layers were put on top........

ok, so tonight i have seen the leaing tower of pisa, or at least the theory of the leaning tower in practice....the baker for tonight's wedding cake arrived at 2 with the cake..for a 7 reception, no less, and from the get-go it was obvious that the cake was lopsided.......and after the baker was done 'setting it up' it started to lean,,,,,and lean some more...to the point that our servers came rushing in...the cake is leaning...we are afraid it will fall over.......parts are bulging where the cake is leaning....when it is cut into the pressure change may cause total implosion..........

ok, so i have this sense of dread about this trip.....like something big will go wrong.......of course, i always think something big will go wrong when i fly....that is why i have to stay awake....to keep the plane up and flying steady.......my paranoia this trip focuses on the norfolk /chesapeake bay tunnel/bridge...i fear that the terrorists will use a car bomb to blow it up the very day and hour we are on it.......now i know that this is quite a longshot.......but i still cannot get it off my mind........

ok, so mm leaves for vacation within 28 hours, or so, and she is quite and uncharacterisitically unprepared........for spain i was packed a full week beforehand........today i put in a load of laundry to assure that i will have clean underthings......not that i do not look forward to going away.....i certainly do.....but traveling domestically is not the challenge that foreign touring presents......shoo.....if i run out of clothing i could always keep an eye out for a goodwill........(others may quip that walmarts are for just such occassions, but i am on a non-walmart roll, and have no intentions of breaking down just yet) the truth is...we will be gone only 6 full days......in weather ranging from 55-75....a pair of shorts or two, several pairs of khakis......5 shirts......and i will be done...this basic trip is one that i made with acw and scw at least 3 times in years past....when ecw could not get off work......this basic trip is one i made in high school once and in college once and in grad school once......with different people but always the same sights...monticello, williamsburg, something in dc, i have a collection of pewter jefferson cups purchased at a rate of 1 per visit to monticello....each of my boys have 2 cups (on one trip that included ecw, scw was a toddler and make such a ruckus the tour guide asked ecw to take him outside.....i ended up taking scw someplace other than inside the gracius mansion, as ecw had never been there.........and we didn't make time for the gift shop on that occasion)......so 1 more day of work, and then we are off.......i am clearly out of the mood to work, so it is good that most of the food for the wedding tonight has already been done........just the arranging part is left for most of it......4 separate food stations......lots of kale and red cabbage garnish around the vegetable and cheese displays.....you know the look........i had purchased several books for the road, but i will not start them until i finish john adams.......)

ok, so i am at the part of john adam's biography where he and john quincy adams (age 10) are picked up by a ship under cover of darkness well north of boston...to go to france to implore the french king to support the americans in their war of indepedence.....from the get-go....this entire thing was deja-vu........the british contend that the war is unpopular...supported by only a handful of renegades......but the brits engage in some heinous shows of force, which rallies the side of the underdog.......adams arrives in paris, where he and franklin are put up...at no cost....by a rich guy who stands to make a fortune with government contracts for war-related provisions........sound familiar? they are staying in passy, which is part of my parisian fantasy..when i win the lottery i will buy a place just off the metro station la muette, in passy, on the park just before the musee marmatton.....which is just before the bois de bologne.........i digress........so adams and franklin are in paris trying to sell the war to the enemies of the brits......and france does side with the americans........recently..i heard someone say...in contempt...that they couldn't understand how the french had let us down, after we saved them in wwII.....frankly....wwII made us even...the french saved us in the revolution.......

i must confess that reading about john adams and john quincy adams is too much like george bush and george w. bush.........i cannot read the words without thinking of the names transposed......happily, john quincy adams seems like a brighter bulb than gwb.......harvard rather than yale.......with better than a c average............

ok, so acw surprised us last night by coming home to do his laundry and going back to uk this morning......he must have wanted to see us before we left for spring break........of course, we both gave him money.....it seems like his trip may have been for more than jovial parental attention.......no problem...my parents used to both give me money when i came home...of course, i never let on that the other had already given me money when the second held out the cash........i am becoming a cnn.com junkie.....just want to keep up to date on this baghdad assault.....just want it to be over......

ok, so scw's rotary exchange to belgium is still in the works, per mail received today........i do not worry about my boy traveling in this time of heightened travel security.......

ok, so mm has poison ivy on the toes of her left foot...not her right foot...just her left......they itch incessantly.....why.....you say? no idea.........

ok, so john adams once wrote his wife three letters in one day....just imagine how many blog entries he could have produced in the computer age.......he also used the term true blue years before uk co-opted it............

ok, so i have enjoyed reading the travel diary that is included on centre's web page.....all about the current london group's travels and antics......well, maybe antics doesn't accurately describe it, but thye lookd to be having a good time.......i got a bit nostalgic with the pics from stonehenge.......it was cold and windy the day we were there, and we had a hard time finding an open restaurant in salisbury.......a bit of trivia...acw bought the tolkein book the Simmarillon (sp) in the gift shop of the salisbury cathedral........the next day we took the chunnel to paris.....i miss traveling....and it is less than 3 months since i got off a plane......

ok, so i drove over to harrodsburg to buy carryout chinese this evening.......hot and sour soup, spring rolls and shrimp lo mein.....ooooh, ooooh, ooooh.....i just love the stuff.......i have treated myself to chinese a lot lately, mostly because i look at my own cooking so much during the day that i cannot look at it again at night.......i brought home a vegetable lasagna, which is perfectly good to eat......but i could not bring myself to warm it back up.........

i have started the last book club book...a biography of john adams.....this book is a stretch for me.....as it relies heavily on volumes of adams' letters...every other paragraph is a direct quote......it gets hard to pay attention......however, both adams and his wife abigail seem quite interesting as people....both well-read in latin and greek...and in clasical authors like cicero and homer.......abigail's mother opposed their marriage, as she did not see adams as good enough for her daughter.......his father was a farmer whilst abigail's father was a harvard-trained pastor......adams himself went to harvard at the age of 15, and graduated at 19......a timetable usual for the era.......that is all i know for now.......aside form the obvious...that adams went on to be the 2nd president of the united states, and that he would correspond with jefferson regularly after they both left office, and that they both died on the same day July 4, 1825....adams' last words were....'...jefferson still lives....' how do i know this? i have been to monticello several times, and this story is told each and every tour.........it is interesting trivia......adams also kept a diary.......not quite as interesting as blogging.......many of his entries were short and vague.......Christmas day.1767 ..spent the day thinking.........obviously it was abigail who did all the work, so that adams could do nothing but think.......

ok, so i took a little drive after the lunch crowd died down....with a load of boxes for kathy clark.......it feels strange to drop off boxes on someone's porch midday, but the day was lovely and it felt really good to get out into the sunshine......jerry is in louisville today, so the computer is idle......just perfect for someone who is playing hooky from work whilst still on the job.......i have been making email hotel requests for next week......and looking up hours of operation for museums......and looking at junk mail........

ok, so after my class at eku tonight i went to the prayer service at my church.....and who should sit next to me.....cheryl wolfe kerbaugh gibson.....who couldn;t wait to tell me that she had seen scw outside of dhs with a girl on saturday...looking so grown-up and relaxed and consumed...........did i know who the girl was......yes..........they are making a movie......a movie?...........she is one of scw's biggeste fans........and then cheryl started on about the war and her french friends and the sorry state of travel............and i have a note from our sunday school class to her...as she was recently robbed and her father is ill and her mother-in-law is moving and so many problems...but cheryl has been so faithful to me and my problems........i can see her now..bringing supper after my miscarriage......she is such a good person......we were sitting in front of her ex-mother-in-law at thetime/////charlotte'sgrandmother in fact..........only cheryl could handle such things...........she was so gracious......

ok, so i am proud of joe lieberman's box o'joe and his position on gay partner rights....even though this does not affect me personally......it does affect me politically.......i work with people who are deeply affected by gay initiatives......more people everyday it seems........i heard today that 2 of my new waitresses may becoming a couple.......who knew?...............i applaud joe for carrying on with things that are importnat beyond this war.......

ok, so today was a difficult day, when you get down to it.....i took a load of boxes to kathy clark's on the way home from work ....she is moving now that jeff passed away in january,.....next to our old babysitter margaret jean mcguire...on boone trail.........jeff passed away suddenly...in january...while we were away in spain.......he had been in pain forever...but no one thought his time was up........this morning ecw disclosed to me that he had been up since 4:00 with chest pain....and that he intended to see rick hempel about it.....i hung on til 10:01 and then started calling......what was up.....by 10 he had already had an ekg and bloodwork...rick thought it was esosphogeal...like heartburn.....his ekg and bloodwork were good..in the night .he could only find 1 real aspirin in the house, so by 10 i had collected a vat of real aspirin........i am not ready to be a widow, like kathy clark, at less that 50 years of age.......she spoke of his death sunday, in sunday school....about how on new year' day she and caitlin and jeff and casey had dinner together, not knowing that it was a last supper........this was yesterday, when she was telling about their last supper.....and this morning my spouse was telling me about his chest pain......i have spent the day in a state of dread.......dread that our time is up.,.....he told me that he did not wake me up because he knew i needed sleep......well...i would have awakened to his cold body and thought.........thanks for letting me sleep.............yeah right..........he is asleep right now....and i am freaked out that his chest pain is heart related, just like his mother's.......we spent supper discussing as i lay dying versus the corrections.......only i had read thoroughly each book....scw and ecw were only part-way through each.....which is unfair.......the clarity was there for me.......but not for them....yet........they will have to finish both books before time is up.....it is only fair....................

ok, so we finished early at work today, so i came home, found as i lay dying under the bed, and finished it for april book club........let me get this straight.......when they finally get to jefferson to bury the mother, the father takes the daughter's abortion money and uses it to buy false teeth so he can marry the woman who already owns a gramaphone........meanwhile the only sensible brother is sent to the insane asslyum at jackson when he tries to burn down the barn, and the brother who thinks his mother was a fish continues to believe that this is true...and the brother with the broken leg eats bananas whilst laying on his mother's coffin, and the mother's favorite jewel continues to resent his favored place........yes, this book must be a classic because it is so simple yet convoluted.....i recall when i first moved to danville there was an article in the paper about banned books, and this book was listed as a book that many libraries banned......why? because of dewy dell's abortion money used to buy pa"s false teeth? or because vardamon confused his dead mother with a dead fish? or because darl burned down the barn so his family could give up the quest and go home? the book was on the shelf at the young-rodes library when i checked...i didn't read it at the time because i was unaware of faulkner...........i was into colette at the time, and having read faulkner, still prefer colette......her sexual themes are more profound, easier to recognize, and happen in paris rather than rural mississippi.......i guess i could better handle a brother mistaking my dead mother for a fish if i was in paris.........rather than in the mud in the boondocks.......mark my words, my book club will love this book, where they disliked collete.........there is no accounting for taste.........

ok, so there is a wild oats opening up just down from jbeth in lex....the organic food store chain that sells my favorite thai soup and noodle mixes.........i couldn't tell from their sign the expected open date however......i have purchased books to read over spring break.....the secret life of bees and 2 others.....hopefully they will suffice over the long drives

ok, so i am dealing with stress by ripping wallpaper off the walls of the upstairs bathroom.....almost finished with the lower end....this afternoon i will get a stool and finish the top parts.....i am using the leftover paper from the kitchen...a simple stripe....because i have plenty of it left and it happens to match the towels.....i also bought a border to go with it......a map of the world in antiqued tones.......might as well look at the world first thing in the morning and last thing at night....and dream about places i will go when things settle down a bit........

ok, so i am a headliner......i read mostly headlines, especially when it comes to war news.....iraqi general captured.....us troops hold south bank of euphrates.....that is about the extent of the information about this war that i can handle......the car bombing really upsets me..the potential for all that to start here in the u s of a........though the terrorist threat would seem less in danville than in bigger cities....a terrorist attack in a small place like this would certainly freak out the entire country...which is the point of these episodes...to paralyze us all with fear......

...as i sit here, in my flannel nightshirt and eating my favorite breakfast (leftover tabouli with chickpeas and roasted red peppers) i blame pres. bush senior for most of this mayhem.........he abandoned the kurds and the shiites after the last gulf war, so they are unlikely to rally behind us now......and i blame the current pres. bush, for acting like a crazed ditctator in his own right......'we'll have a war if i say we'll have a war' is not the best way to get others to rally around your dirty little war......

ok, so i have spent the past 2 days downloading led zep songs.,,,,,,,putting two and two together...i read some time ago that led zep was remastering some of its old songs for the lotr soundtrack.....obviously it wasn't for 1 or 2 so it must be for the end...........#3..........sounds right, having listened to lyrics from ramble on, over the hills and far away, misty mountain hop.......it could yet be done........even stairway to heaven could fit........the battle of nevermore.......oh yes...it could yet be true........

ok, so mm gets no respect.........i recycle every bit of recyclable material at trc....in my van...5 days a week.....and because my van is somewhat rode hard and hung up wet my spouse is angry at me.......this van was once new and pristine.....and now it is not.....somehow saving the earth one load at a time and having a clean van do not compare in importance.......

ok, so i am not working tonight, and i am so glad to be home...........i am not, however, watching uk play....i weeded instead.....so many weeds and they come up so much more easily when the ground is wet......i am bummed because some of my oldest roses have died over the winter.....blairii#2.....gone.........new dawn......dead .........and some roses whose names i did not even get attached to are dead as well........all the martha stewart roses i bought on a whim are dead, but this does not surprise me somehow......they are grafted, and easily killed......as opposed to my old roses which are on their own roots, and harder to kill........

ok, so the digital camera has arrived, and scw is reading the book so that he can tell us all how to use it.......i dreamed that we couldn't find the cable that connects the camera to the computer.........we searched everywhere for that cable...there were women wearing black leather having a reunion of some sort in my house, as well as a judges conference........go figure what all that has to do with my missing camera cable......i checked this morning....it is actually in the box..........

ok, so our spring break plans are starting to gel.....i faxed my reservations today for hillwood, marjorie merriweather post's estate in washington dc........noted for its gardens as well as its russian collection...faberge eggs, icons....etc.......her first husband was the american ambassador to russia right after wwI,...so she came home with a load of loot.......to visit, reservations must be made in advance, presumably so they can run backround checks.....i visited several years ago..i had to disclose my address in dc, even if it was a hotel, and i could not visit on the day i called....they made an 'appointment' for later in the week....like a dental visit.......the family money came from post cereals......and she married well........her daughter (only child) was the actress dina merrill.....the merrill of the wall street investment bank was one of her husbands........anyway, scw and i were slated to go there last spring break, but my mother-in-law died so we went to the funeral in cincinnati instead......the same day we are also going to dumbarton oaks, an estate in georgetown owned by harvard. and noted for its byzantine and pre-columbian collections.........we will also take a turn through georgetown u. while we are in the neighborhood........


i have made an interior decorating decision....i have decided on fabric for drapes and armchair covering........my mother will locate it on her 4 state mission trip with her sister-in-law......she has the swatches and the store locations, and the knowledge about how many yards..........the current chair and drapes in question were in place when we brought scw home from the hospital, so i believe i can safely replace them without guilt........the fabric is grass green ground with flowers in rust and burgundy and purple.......very happy......

i am home early because our evening kitchen help turns out to be quite capable.......the new guy, tommy, was making cute garnishes as i was leaving.....a good sign.........of course, they are all new guys, so to speak......no one working at night, except jerry and i, have been at trc longer than january.........most less.......but they each came with experience.........somewhat annoying is the constant topic of conversation in the kitchen......food.......iron chef, bobby flay, emeril.......i am not so into food that i want to discuss it 24/7..........worse, none are readers..........well, that is not the worst thing...they are all so much younger than me....i feel so old these days.........

ok, so we at trc now have a dsl line.....with this line we were able to consolodate our phone,data and fax lines from 3 to 2, with an actual savings of about $40/month........life is good......or at least as regards internet....last night, with uk playing during dinnertime, we had only 5 walk-in customers for our thursday evening mealtime.....thankfully, we had 2 groups with reservations....one with 75 and another with 15, so the evening was not an entire bust.......saturday night when uk plays will be another story.....i may bring a book.....another book, as i am done with the corrections........so many of the scenes depicted in that book brought back painfuil memories of past unpleasantness, with both my family and with my in-laws....................i need to go back to my usual genre...murder mysteries......so much less cathartic but much for enjoyable for the escape.......

ok, so i am going to say an unpopular statement, especially in my househoold.....i find the blooming bradford pear trees lovely......

ok, so my youngest child is wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts to school, despite the 38 degree temp outside.....she is hardly convinced that she should wear a jacket over it all to school...........if i made her wear that get-up on such a cold day....it would be considered child abuse.........

ok, so tonight i finally accomplished the ultimate download........karla bonhoff home.........this song is one that ecw and i used to sing along with in his old pinto...oh....25 years ago......i love this song.....guitar, mandolin and karla and maybe a back-up singer or two.......very retro bluegrass....karla wrote some of james taylor's songs, by the way...similar genre..........i think i will listen to it again just one more time.......

this morning cayle got up at 6:25, got dressed and came downstairs to watch the war on tv........there is something essentially disturbing about watching war on tv.....at any age.......something that horrific should not be viewed in realtime......not that i am not keeping up with it all....a keep tabs on cnn.com....just the headlines....i am not prepared to read about the gruesome details just yet..........

o,, so the corrections is becoming painful, especially the parts where it is clear that all the mothers and fathers involved have their favorite children and their least favorite children....there was a scene in which a least favored child had to sit and stare at his liver and bacon until he gave up and ate it (he fell asleep at the table)...the liver and bacon meal had been made in punishment by the mother toward the father, because he left her alone with the children for weeks at a time while he traveled on business.........the favorite child was forgiven the liver and played pingpong with daddy......this is painful because my brother was the favorite child to my mother's people.....he was the only grandson.......my aunt and uncle,,,to this day,,,dote on him.........he spent thanksgiving with them rather than with us, or his own mother.......i have no idea where this book is going, but it is sure to be a cathartic place.......

ok, so meanmamma is enjoying this book.....the mother, enid, reminds me so much of my late mother-in-law.......in this scene, enid is having lunch in the new york apartment of her son chip, served up by her daughter, a philly chef....despite the poached salmon on the table, she continues to drone on about a housewarming party she recently attended (ex-classmates of chip) that featured a pyramid of shrimp........the implication, my own children who moved away are not nearly as successful as those who stayed behind in our little home town......or something equally as obtuse......i have a simlar memory of my m-in-l's first visit to trc.....she droned on and on about a wonderful meal she had at the restaurant in cincy owned by my brother-in-law greg's then boss.......not a word about the meal she was consuming....just about that stellar meal.......like it was a gift from the gods......of course, that restaurant is now bankrpt, greg got fired, and my nondescript little place is int he black and chugging right along........so do we kin to women like enid succeed just to prove the enids of thw orld that we are worth noting and praising on our own merits? back to the book.......

ok, so april marks a year of meanmamma..........a full year.......and such a year, with losing both my mother-in-law and my dad...........and acw's first year to college..........and getting an alcohol liscense.....such changes.....i may have to start a private blog to keep all of my real thoughts in order.........nah.............i give this blog the full credit for my current state of mind.........twisted but steady in all the essentials.......

ok, because i took the time to copy the last entry, it was published without a hitch..........

ok, so blogger did eat my last blog.....the one where i rant about how girl's size 7-14 clothing now comes in plus versions.....and the one about how much i like jonathan franzen's book the corrections..the one that oprah chose for her book club and franzen declined her invite.......that was the one that was lost......ah well........we are trying to plot out our spring break....and i am out of my element when it comes to factoring in 4 people,,,,,,,,actually 6 people..us (all except acw) and ecw's brother nick and his wife......i would say 7 people, but my brother stuart never responded to my email telling him i was coming......he is surely 'tied up with the war' and unavailable......so i have not planned the first thing.......because we do not know how much time nick can give us, given his brain tumor, treatment. etc........i do have a list of things i want to see....monticello for the umpteenth time.......except this time we know a docent who can get us a tour of the ballroom under the dome.......and hillwood, margorie merriweather post's home in dc.....and dumbarton oaks, also in dc and owned by harvard........alas, in the timeframe given, neither of the dc homes are open on mondays........we also want to visit some colleges.....uva, st. johns, william and mary, georgetown........i know that st john's does not have a school of architecture, but they do require that students learn ancient greek........and i consider that a plus......jefferson went to w&m, and founded uva's library and designed their buildings......if scw went to georgetown he would see my brother about as much as i do her in ky.........cayle has never been to williamsburg, where the crepe myrtles will be in bloom.......i have been there at least 7 times........i am drawn by the boxwood...i find the scent intoxicating........and by the gingerbread cookies baked fresh in back of raleigh tavern.......by the way........dr. rick hempel, my friend.....is the only person i know personally who is a member of phi beta kappa....the honorary founded by t. jefferson and others in the raleigh tavern............the trip may become a whirlwind....i foresee much driving......but i will not be the main driver on this excursion..........

ok, so i completely missed a monday blog.....the opportunity never arose at home nor at work.......we were quite busy for a monday, and were missing no less than 3 employees..........one was awol on her first day.........it went well regardless..........i regret that i didn't see adrian brody receive his oscar.....i also regret that i have not seen the pianist.....i have seen spirited away...which won for animation.....of course, the competition was not stiff.....ice age? that film had few moving parts.......

ok, so ii am listening to counting crows...a long december...while i procrastinate.....i am supposed to be studying my sunday school lesson, as i teach this morning.......i am a bit disconcerted, having read the letter to the editor this morning that said something to the effect of so-called christians who own restaurants that serve alcohol should be worried about when they meet their maker at the last judgement.......i have taught sunday school for at least 12 years, which means that i have read the Bible at least once a week for that time-frame......Jesus said many things, but he never once addressed drinking alcohol nor owning a cafe that does so..........i also believe that when he raised his cup with his disciples at the last supper, there was real wine in his glass......not grape juice.........he personally turned water into wine...not just ok stuff but better than the groom's father had purchased for the wedding at cana.....clearly, i do not mind that the letter writer has not and will never eat at my restaurant.......that is his right...........but when he gets it in his mind that he is holier than the rest of us because he doesn't drink alcohol or enter businesses that do, i beg to differ.........

ok, so we may have had our first abc 'test' person come in to day.....a car of 4 came in about 2:00...and each ordered, but only 1 was old enough per id.....after that 1 person had a beer, they all left, saying they really wanted a cheeseburger......we will not know when the abc actually comes, but we do check id's carefully just in case......

ok, so i was reading about the war this morning on cnn.com.....they have a special section called wartracker.........kind of like stormtracker only deadlier........i did not click on this section, because i did not want to encourage cnn in their desire to draw additional readers through the use of 'special sections'.........i didn't actually read any of their articles....just read the headlines and quicky concluded that this will not be over quickly, and that little will be left standing in iraq when the war is finally over.......

on to more important things........it got cold last night...and the c-w's have already taken off the down comforter.......whup........spring is such a changable season....cold some days...hot as all get out on others........hard to dress without being too hot or too cold in the end......it is chilly this morning......i am going to take a quick walk around my garden, then get ready for work......

ok, so tonight at trc, a family that i have known since scw was in preschool were eating supper...........the daughter was in town on spring break from a private school, and when i asked if she had called her friends from the montessori and danville systems while she was home, she blushed.....no i was riding horses in indiana with my friends......she did ask about scw....and then the conversation turned to travel.....where will you go next january, now that france and most of europe is anti-american.........even italy has had protests........thankfully, i also saw madame goodwin, one of my favorite people, also at supper...she and i commiserated about the state of world affairs, and decided that we could never write off france as a destination........

on a connecting note, i came home needing a book to read, now that seabiscuit has beaten war admiral after numerous preamble chapters.......i picked up a book i have read before.......Off the Road, by Jack Hill...a memoir of mr. hill's pilgrimage to santiago de compostela......this past january, i and my fellow pilgrims crossed the route.....we knew because we saw the sign.................we did not see any actual pilgrims, probably because it wa january, and the point of the pilgrimage was to arrive just before july 25, the feast of st james.....given this global insanity, i believe that i could take a pilgrimage walk across northen spain......even though i understand little of the language, share no fondness of the food nor wine, and lack the basic fanaticism about soccer...........however, the scenery is compelling........and the heritage is intriguing...........and the potential for self-reflection is ripe.........but then, can a pilgrimage be done in week-long bytes......how many 1st-week-of- januaries would it take me to walk across northern spain? i am not catholic by any stretch of the imagination. what would i say to the priest when i got to the end? hiya, don't mind me if i skip out on communion.........i was intrigued by the books beginning....in the cloisters in nyc.....i have never been there....maybe that is my first pilgrimage....to nyc to see the cloisters re-erected so generously by jd rockefller.........would i be safer in nyc than in paris? or rome?

ah well. meanmamma continues to keep the goodmamma of the l.o. in her prayers.......prayer is about all we have these days.........

ok, so i am nervous as a cat over this war........i cannot believe that we actually pulled the first trigger.......i have always believed that the us of a was a strong defneder but not an aggressor......i was wrong.......i can't help ut think that gwb si trying to finish what his daddy started but couldn\'t finish........i hope it is over soon.......

we are getting a canon digital zr70 camcorder...it is not in the professional range of camcorders, but we will have it on hand when we visit brother nick in dc over spring break...that that is important to us...to have him on tape...our videos of my dad and my grandpa are quite old, but at least we have them...we also have ecw's sister sylvia and his mom and dad on old video...but many of his siblings weren't around during our brief video years....and we want to have something to remember them by......nick's brain tumor is one of those unknowns...we want to see him at his best before he is no longer himself.........

ok, so i went shopping last night.....rather than sit and wait for the fighting to start......scw and acw and i found several bargains before we moved on to best buy to look at digital video cameras.......i picked up the one for $1199 first...it was so small that i could barely focus my eyes through the viewfinder.....and the controls were so small that i could barely press them without pressing another control close-by.....hopwever, the quality of picture was much better than the ones for $599 and $699, which the best buy guy suggested 'and better suited 'for my needs'....these both do sepia, and stills, and will download onto a computor equipped with the right software.......he said that the still were not printable quality,,,and said that for the price difference we could get a decent video camera and a decent still digital camera for less than the $1199 camera.......hmmmmm....we just need to convince grandma that herb would have wanted us to be completelt decked out digitally.....my dad would have enjoyed the digital age.....i have fond memories of him splicing movie tapes together(movie film rolls were notoriously short) in order to make a smoothly progressing vacation film........he bought himself an apple when they first became available to consumers, and spent a great amount of time teaching himself how to use it......anyway, we liked the way the jvc felt to hold...much easier to hold.......now we must scour the consumer reports to make a decision and present the price points to grandma.....speaking of herbert crown, scw wore a completely osu color scheme to school today...scarlet and grey.....herbert would have been so proud........though he would not have wanted scw to actually go there, necessarily........herbert would have actually read the college mail coming to our house.......brown, amherst, yale.......herbert would have also been inclined to go to their web sites and learn about each school (whether they have architecture, for instance) .....i have thought a lot about herbert in recent days.......especially as we are on the brink of war.....he spent 2 years in occupied japan...where americans were not welcome at all.......i cannot imagine what my grandmother must have felt...shipping 3 sons off to war....vernon to india, herbert to japan, and richard to a navy ship somwhere in the southeast.......i occupy my anxiety with finishing seabiscuit.......................

ok,so i had a good day at work despite the coffee thing.........we are still interviewing new staff, and i have a predjudice against people who come in and say....i seen your ad in the paper............ouch.......what ever happened to i saw i have seen i will see.......this line has been repeated so many times it makes me worry about local schools...though happily none of these people came from dhs.......boyle, lincoln, casey and burgin...yes, but dhs...no.....our new supper line cook tells me that i remind him of his ex-wife's mother......who reportedly hates his guts......this cannot be good.......i will have to work with him as long as rob schott is out with his foot surgury........

ok, so i made coffee this mornng, as usual, and it is too weak.........i must have either put in too much water or not enough coffee.......yuk, there is not much worse than a weak, watery, cup of coffee.........how will i make it through the day.........?

ok, so i have read this book before.....seabiscuit reminds me so much of moby dick........part drama, part informational tome.........part epic.......only the particulars are different......horses rather than leviathans.....jockeys and trainers instead of quiqueg.....and charles howard instead of captain quigg........ the narrator is ishmael.....of course.......

ok, so after work i invested in grass seed, rose food, pansies, primroses and other assorted hardy annuals.....i decided that if gwb wages war, i will at least have a nicer lawn and a few perky flower pots to distract me in this time of collective insanity.........i am distressed abut the peace activist crushed in israel.....i cannot believe that the tank just ran her over.......wasn't the 10 commandments in the old testament? do not these israeli soldiers read the talmud? probably as well as gwb's war-mongers read the gospels........in other news.....someone left seabiscuit at the restaurant, and i have been reading it while i await my 2nd child.....in front of dhs and in other prime danville 'waiting spots'. i am enjoying this work of nonfiction emmensely........i know little about horseracing....let along racing in the late 30's, but this is prresented so well that i am intrigued.......

ok, so i have watched the end of the sec tourney and the big ten tourney......and i am convinced that college sports exists not for alumni but for people who never made it to or through college.....ecw's step-grandmother is a case in point------aunt ginny, henry ernst's third wife who watched ky b-ball faithfully when she inhabited this house, called the uk teams 'her boys' even though she never went to college........at the sec tourney, a crazy woman dressed to the hilt in blue(sequins, mardi gras masque, jewelry.....) was interviewed by the press....i would bet my bottom dollar she never attended uk.......so if so many non-alums root for college ball, why not for the intelectual schools....why wasn't this crazy woman crazed over harvard or yale or princeton? locally, people who root for danvfille probably went to danville,and people who root for boyle probably went to boyle. i, for one, have always been out of step of uk bball....i can recall going out to dinner with ecw's original bike shop partner and his family..naybe 20 years ago......this little girl knew the starting lineup for uk...and i didn't even recognize the names........ah, well, illinois beat osu, my alma mater, decidely....it would be too much to ask for osu to win national championships in both football and bball.......of course, if osu gets in on the ncaa tourney, you never know...........osu breeds as many non-alum fans as any college team......my mother has a slew of scarlet and grey pieces of clothing, and she never attended the first class there...she went to o.u., which has the colors of green and white and is rarely seen on the national sports scene......so she has picked a team more likely to win as her 'team' . an aside, my mother has an extensive collection of crowns, a name that is not technically her own......she recently lowrated scw for neglecting to do heritage research on her family.....ironic in that he did so much legwork for our tip to the stephans of lambsheim...... one could say that these teams give hope to the people who never had the chance to go to college......one could say that.....but these days financial aid is so prevelent(sp?) that lack of money is only an excuse for young and mature students alike...... maybe team fans should be asked to wear one color if they are alums and another color if they are just fans.....just to help us all keep track........uk grads could wear blue, and non-alums could wear white with blue trim.....and no one would wear blue sequined mardi gras masks..........

ok, so while pres. bush decides about war, and the uk played miss. state in the sec tourney, mean mamma slept........naps are the perfect complement to uneasy times.....yeah, the weather is glorious, and i will be going outside momentarily.......but for a few fleeting minutes i was snugly asleep in a stream of southern sunlight, dreaming of...............

ok, so whomever (whoever?) transferred my laundry from the washer to the dryer, but failed to actually turn on the dryer.....thanks but no thanks.........

ok, so there is no rest for the wicked.......i had to get up this morning and study for teaching sunday school.......noted, i am blogging rather than reading about the feeding of the 5000....frankly i cannot feed another person this weekend....we may have to pick up chinese again....i wish there was a good thai place in town....i really have a taste for that deepfried tofu in toasted sesame dipping sauce with the cucumbers in it.......oh my...........

ok, so tonight we were packed, to the point that we had to turn people away who had not bothered to call ahead........we had a sorority dinner at 6, for 70 people, and a birthday party for 30 at 7, so there were only 30 available seats at the get=-go for supper, and those were taken before friday rolled around......jerry had a woman cuss him out at the door today because she couldn't walk in at 5:45 and get a table.......now, for the record, weekdays are not nearly so busy, and we miss our friends who used to order a soup/salad combo or maybe quiche but usually roasted vegetable pasta salad.......this centre prof duo have not been in for some time and our wait staff are (is?) beginning to ask why..............since we got our liscense, the only centre people who have been in are the president and his wife and they barely drink.......speaking of liscenses, i was told tonight that danville is prepared to redistrict it's voting precincts to prevent applebees from leaving town.....i had not thought of that.......i guess that is why i am not in politics.......

one last thought before i go to bed......thanks to scw who was thoughtful enough to pick daffodils for me, knowing that i was working late and they would make me happy.......

ok, so i dreamed last night about being at my grandmother crown's house, with assorted crown cousins, and the ingredients for spinach salad..this is certainly not an actual memory, as my crown relatives were into cole slaw and jello salads(with or without cool-whip)......the action, so to speak, took place at the house my grandmother bought 'in town' after my grandpa died....2 doors down from the church in a community of 3 streets that once was a port on the ohio canal.......i had brought mandarin oranges, which were wrapped in cellophane in my dream.......and the rest of the action darts back and forth between the house in town and the farm, with running from the pond included, though i am not sure who was running........not scw, as he was never at the pond at the farm......scw does run well in videos, i must confess.........i do not think that the salad ever gets made, because the people bringing ingredients never stay long enough for completion of the task......


the new yorker came yesterday.....i enjoyed the short story immensely....about a family of five that caters for a living in the upstate mountains of ny.........sound like anyone we know.....family of five that caters......the youngest child, trying to help, pours cherry juice over 200 swordfish steaks as the father is preparing food for a wedding reception.....and things start to get crazy after that.......as a caterer i would have been mortified if that happened to me.......i also enjoyed the piece about perfumes on the very last page.......and the piece about the woman who writes about fashion for the international herald tribune.......

ok, so i enjoyed the ist annual student film festival, sponsored by roots and shoots. i especially enjoyed rachel doing the mean old witch dance as she brought golem to life. i believe that i have seen that move somewhere ...........i also enjoyed attending the festival with my entire family, including acw who showed up unexpectedly............by the way, i also enjoyed hearing the counting crows version of big yellow taxi, and i am downloading it as we speak.......

ok, so the pig-kissing photo in the paper really set me off yesterday......because it came about the same time that the email from the advocate arrived...telling me that if i wanted gov cup results in the paper i would have to write up the event myself and they would print it on the scrapbook page, in a few weeks as they are several weeks behind..presumably with pseudo-beauty pageants and the like......i fired off a letter to the editor first thing this morning......and while this letter was brilliant in every sense, it will not be printed.....the advocate editor has already apologized for the lack of coverage at the premier ky academic competition....and will print a news piece about it friday.......

a small group of reno's staff had a late lunch with us today....they are much in the same boat as us...they have not hired extra help as they do not know how long and to what extent the increased business will last....they are also working both lunch and supper....and they are also exhausted........they really made our day.....we hope they come back......

ok, so tomorrow marks 1 week of selling ethanol...and no recall vote in sight for trc......i am so amaed that the evil dry voters want to try to turn back the election...with applebees only half built........luckily our precinct was totally pro-ethanol

ok, so elizabeth smart has been found and returned home 9 months after she was kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom........of course, everyone thought it was her father........how sad, that in this time we are so sceptical of the males around us........now i really want the lacy woman to be found safe...i really don't wnt her husband to be the perp......

ok, so....i was driving from my class back to trc tonight when terry gross, said......ok, so...........i almost wrecked my car............but she was interviewing some guy about yemen and it's position on the war....now that we are buying them off........and how many yemeni villagers are retired american citizens of yemeni descent with u.s. passports who simply went back to the old country to live out their days.........the yemenis are also the group most linked to terrorism........and fundementalist islam......... beleive that this war is a major republican mistake, and that we will all live to regret it........

ok, so mm tried to email results to advocate-mess last night- received an email this morning from newsroom.....we haven't a clue what governor's cup is so you will have to elaborate......this event was covered in both today's lex herald and louisvile courier, so the danville paper people either do not read other papers or simply didn't make the connection.....alas.....even newsroom head john davis's wife helen was there yesterday..........

ok, so mm is overjoyed that scw placed 3rd in high school general knowledge at governor's cup beating the guy from dunbar who recently won the jeopardy teen challenge..........the fellow who won, frank guan beat him as an 8th grader when scw placed 2nd......they actually tied but frank got the tie-breaker.......scw also beat the guy from johnson county central who is fondly referred to as one of the evil twins.........i am so proud.......i am also shopped out....and well fed......i spent my in-between time looking at fabric samples in louisville to cover that pesky front-room chair and hassock)....i ate wonderful thai food last night at thai-siam just off watterson parkway on bardstown road, right across from sullivan university...i had the tofu special- fried tofu appetizer with a toasted sesame dipping sauce, lemon grass and tofu soup, and vegetarian pad thai with sauteed tofu.....sublime....until the couple with the baby came.....then i had the waitress box up what i had not yet eaten.........i also brought a carryout order for scw, who didn't finish testing til after 9:00 pm last night.........the academic festivities took place in the same hotel complex as the pomeranian convention.......so we were treated to people with tiny balls of fur on leashes.........they were there last year as well..........glad to be home..........ready to go to bed.............not ready to go back to work......

ok, so i am listening to ani defranco and indigo girls singing midnight train to georgia....good old song.......i am so exhausted that i am blowing off sunday school...........i will take scw to the bus at 11, then drive to louisville.......i have cooked everything for monday lunch so my workmates need only warm up soups, quiches, etc.......i appreciate this gesture, as they will have 3 carryout lunches and 1 dine-in special supper for 20 that they are covering for me......however, going with scw to governor's cup is a tradition.......we always have lunch at a mall on gcup monday, then shop until awards ceremony.........that is, if there is time....the 8th grade season, when they won the state, there wasn't time for either shopping or lunch, and we were so excited we didn't stop to shop on the way home.....i am up for anything this weekend...mostly glad that i will have 2 full days off and someone else is cooking.......back to the restaurant.....supper last night went very well......we fed at least 80 people, and it went smoothly...and nobody drank too much, and most everybody ordered a glass or bottle of wine with dinner, and nobody complained......ecw's saturday running group was 'treated' to someone ranting about his lousy dinner on friday night at trc....the salmon was dry as a biscuit.....and when ecw challenged him regarding praising publically and critisising privately....this joker insisted that he had, in fact, spoken to the kitchen about his meal......when i followed up with the schotts, he had, in fact, been in the kitchen twice on friday night, both times insisting that his meal was the best he had ever had in danville..... the schotts are furious, as he is an aquaintance of theirs...... sue schott has been promoted at lowe's, so we will be hiring a sous chef to help rob, as well as an extra kitchen person to make salads and appetizers......that is what i have done non-stop for the last three nights.....the volume looks to be enough to justify someone doing this job so i do not have to work 14 hour days forever....gentle readers, if you know of anyone who wants to work thursday, friday and saturday evenings, (5 to10) let me know........we prefer someone with culinary experience and/or talent..........ok, so i am listening to guster all the way to heaven....which is very sweet..........scw has been quite busy with downloads, and we now have an eclectic mix of music to accompany my blogging........which is catharsis on my part.......i do not blog things i want or need people to know, but things i need to get off my chest and out of my head........too many things in my head as it is.......

ok, so we have a serial wine caller........he/she (both appear to be on the line at once) call up ands ask about the wine list......do you have kendall-jackson.........when we say no they hang up.......then they call back....do you have woodbridge? no.......they ask what we do have...i say our house white is from toad hollow.....what the hell is that, they say.......and hang up.........such a 7th grade thing to do.......no wonder we don't let 7th graders actually buy wine.....

ok, so this morning the crocuses(croci?) were blooming as i walked up to the mailbox....so sweet and so unexpected.....as i did not plant them there..........must be a nice little surprise from scw.........i took the bait and went to somethingawful..........i especially liked the saturday news feature about let's go camping you nerds........reminded me of the best of mad magazine.....i also liked the updated fun with dick and jane comics.......and yes, i did enjoy the updated axis of evil feature, with jacko's predicted move to a third world country (one 20 years behind in which people still think jacko is a superstar) where he will have a compound with a house of marble and burnt twigs........and that will be known where young boys enter and never return.......i would like to propose that mattel capitliaze on all the jacko publicity...and come out with a line of mj dolls, about 20 in a series to show the transformation from child star to whatever the.........he is now.........mj would surely buy all that is porduced and then announce that skyrocketing sales validate his continued fame.....oh yes....there must be a tommy mattola doll, as himself and as the devil.........maybe even a playhouse featuring the neverland merrygoround where mj doll can ride the ride all the day long.....and a large plastic tree where mj can sit on an upper branch and contemplate his navel.......can't have a 'king'size bed and lots of little boy dolls, because that would border on porn.......

ok, so the mm was visited by an old friend today, unexpectedly......she was in town with her daughter at the forensics thing....she went first to see ecw at db&f...then came over to the trc.....i have not seen her in years, though she and her husband still keep contact with kandy and dan.....we first met kandy and dan through cathy waugh and rocky cooper.......so long ago.......anyway, i have not seen her since she had a car wreck 6 years ago.....she is now in constant pain, says she....but we mostly talked about our gifted yet wild first-borns and our brilliant second-borns.......i will always remember cathy waugh for telling us when her baby would be born from the first day she knew she was pregnant....and darn if she wasn't right..........she really made my day.....with her candid opinions and reations and encouragement..........her first born goes to antioch in yellow springs, ohio......after centre turned him down......with a 32 act and a 1450 sat and alumni parents......

ok, so i just read on cnn.com about a short heavyset guy in florida who is faking choking episodes so that women will notice him and give him the heimlich and allow him to hug and kiss them in gratitude......ypu saved my life, let e buy you a beer........

ok, so gwb is really scaring me......he looks so deranged in photos....like a deviant child caught in an act of mayhem but unable to stop himself....if only he would find himself an intern in a blue gap dress, then we could all just focus on his faults and let the war thing drop.....

ok, so the drinking has calmed down a bit on day 2.....only a few daquiris and a mimosa......i was starting to worry that danville might just go on a bender.......the phone was ringing at 8:00 when i got to work...the woman asked how much we charged for a 6-pack of bud-light...she seemed perturbed that we not only do not sell beer byt he 6-pack, but that she would have to buy a meal to get a single bottle.......she asked when was the soonest she could come over......and seemed perturbed that we didn't open til 11........oh my...........

ok, so i cannot get the song by aimee mann out of my mind....the two fo us .......from some sound track sung with someone named michael penn.....it is so catchy that it runs through my brain like a broken record.........we're on our way home...we're on our way home......we are going home.....you and i have memories longer than the road ahead.......and so it goes......

ok, so one of the first orders filled yesterday was for spinach quiche...........and a vodka on the rocks.....i personally cannot think of a worse food/alcohol combo.........whooooo......we actually sold more martinis yesterday than wine or beer.........who knew that danville was so into martinis...........i took out 2 entire boxes of bottles to be recycled......the alcohol business will make my personal recycling crusade problematic....as we speak, the back of my car is chock full of cardboard and boxes of bottles, and bags of glass and cans.......if ever i get stopped by the authorities, my car will smell so of spirits that they will surely insist i take a breathylizer........

ok, so yesterday the channel 27 guy kept called me kathy crown-royal.......like the whiskey....he thought he was funny.....nyuck,nyuck,nyuck........

ok, so i was going to blog but a relative has handed over the new new yorker, so i will read it instead of blogging something profound..............

ok, so indecision has gotten the best of me with regards to fabric for the chair in the front room....so i may just go ahead and recover the loveseat in our bedroom, as i am certain of that fabric.........

ok, so i am fantasizing about paris, and i may just have to go back next january.......now this will be a hard sell...as i have been to paris 10 times.....but......there are so many places in paris i have not been due to the company i have kept.....several small houses and museums i have not seen.....several gardens......entire districts........i have not seen the new library, nor the le corbusier house/foundation.....i have not eaten\drank at any of hemingway's haunts.......i take that back..i have had breakfast at deux magots...does that count? the entire trip to spain i wished i was in france........of course, the trip to spain made my french seem almost understandable.....anyway, back to paris...so many side trips i have not taken........st. denis......rheims.......compeigne..........fontainbleu...well i have been to fontainbleu but it was closed on the day ecw and i were there.......i have not visited the gobelins factory, nor eurodisney.......so many things to see.........i think that paris is the most perfect of cities..........there are rose gardens i ahve not seen rosarie de hay will not be in bloom in january...........

ok, so i am enjoying closer to fine with indigo girls, jewel, and sarah mclaughin (sp).......i really like the song closer to fine......i also like the part on this cover where jewel yodels..........too few artists yodel these days........i can remember going to a swiss festival with my parents years ago, and there was a yodeling contest.......the sound is so distinctive..........something i cannot see myself doing.......even after a few beers.....

ok, so thursday will be crazy.....all three lex stations will be here in addition to danville, lex and louisville newspapers..channel 27 was here today doing background shots....we will be on tonight at either 5:00, 5:30 or 6.......we have had people come in today wanting just a drink........we are not a bar, so we will not sell just a drink...only alcohol with an order from the menu......the 27 guy jerry sanders was kind of condescending...he asked me on camera about how we will advise danvillians on what wine goes with which food...as they are unused to wine.......i corrected him abd said that danville is quite sophisticated when it comes to wine, and we have had to be quite careful inputting together our wine list to match that level of savvy......

ok, so i neglected to mention that our liqu.lisc.is #1........and that we have had to order extra sparkling wine because people have been reserving not only tables, but bubbly bottles as well.......

ok,so thursday is booking up.....we have had a person stop his car in the street, jump out to make a reservation, then get back in and drive away......how funny.......still no word on whether or not reno;s has their liscense yet.......regardless, wilma brown will get to buy our first drink at 11:00 thursday.......

ok, so we are now legal to sell alcohol.....starting thursday at lunch.........we will probably have a glass of champagne before we open, just to commerate the occassion.......

ok, so ecw's brother james turned 50 today......and his little sister called him to tell him they were all going out to dinner in cincinnati tonight, but she didn;t call him in time for him to actually drive the 2.5 hours to cincinnati.....he was kind of bummed out, as his family has kind of splintered with his parents deaths and will disagreements.....and his siblings cancer treatments.........we hope to visit brother nick in d.c. over spring break, but only if he is up to it.........

ok, so tomorrow is l.o's birthday...it is also the birthday of ecw's next oldest sibling...........he and she are so unalike, i can hardly believe the closeness of birth.......

ok, so we went to lexington to a birthday/uk basketball watching party ust down the street from henry clay hs...the #2 child is a senor at hc...and has an offer to play bball at centre.......he is very tall and quite good looking.....but he was not the center of discussion..we were there to toast our friend dick burchett, who turned 64 2 days after i turned 47.......his girlfriend leslie, our hostess, is nearly 50, and has 4 children by 2 previous husbands....her second husband, the parent of the 3 children still at home.....has 4 children by his next marriage.....got it? this is all too many children and too many husbands.....looking around the table, many of our friends are on second wives......at least 4 men and 3 women...........i can hardly handle the strain of my first marriage.........not strain exactly....that is a bad choice of words.......suffice it to say that i have no interest in having multiple spouses.........alas, the hostess was much put put out that i have my own restaurant.....she absolutley refused to let me help in any way........even the dishes.........

ok, so i was off both friday and saturday evenings of this weekend.....which almost made up for working saturday lunch.......working is so overrated.........take away the paycheck and the health insurance and a few workmates and what do you have? hopefully some pleasure with accomplishment.......pleasure that is felt every single workday.........but ...alas...not everyday is a good work day........best to make the best of down time to make up for work time that isn't always a good time..........

ok, so he who is always right decided to do his righteous dance down the hall when he discovered that the download i waited hours for was not james taylor singing cat in the cradle by cat stevens, but harry chapin singing his own song........so it was mislabeled for both writer and singer......and so what if it took a long time to download...it was not a hardship for he who is always right...........i also downloaded a sarah mclaughlin, indigo girls and jewel version of closer to fine....and a james taylor/paul simon/george harrison version of homeward bound....fab-ooooo...also a cover of cowgirl in the sand bhy the indigo girls.........oooh.........

ok, so one of the new waitresses is in a minor tizzy because she thinks the cute guy sitting by himself is tobey mcguire...i have not seen spiderman, so i am no judge, but by the look of his cell phone...very walmart/low rung.....i have a hard time believing that t.m. is in my restaurant....of course, i probably woulndn'r recognize the pope unless he wore a name tag.......

ok, so another friday has come and gone without a l.liscense......maybe by next friday.........

ok, so pop-up ads have become so annoying to me.........when i got up to get more coffee, the screen was full of them in just the short time i was gone...........the ones with flashing lights are the worst.......

ok, so i spent some time last night downloading songs, and 2 out of 3 won't play.........maybe that is why they cal the band coldplay???????? so frustrating.....