cluck cluck

Whatta drag, Suzy, that you and mostly Bill have to go through that kind of b.s. reorganization. I got out just before the peoplesoft monster took over our institution, and that was a bad and endless upheaval. What you guys face is much more major.

My steaming pile of dreck now requires hours and hours of revision, reorganization, cutting, pasting, moaning, cursing, whinging. And it's just like yours, you'll be happy to know. "Here's a bunch of boring stuff about utopias and stupid stuff about Oz, giving me an excuse to show you this cool Carl Barks stuff, all of which you've seen so much you're sick of it." At least what you have to offer is novelty. My only hope is that Barks is so old hat that some of it will be new to younger people. But I doubt it.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the trip. And for me, two weeks from right now, it'll be over.

I suspect you are right about the location of our hotel. I know that part of G'ville well enough (I rode my bike west on second avenue every day for quite a long time) to find it hard to imagine a motel there. Archer road (though familiar, I can't remember where it is) and I-75 will be just fine. Whatever.

We had a nice Charlie's birthday yesterday. Loafed and read in the morning (both of us now reading Philip Pullman), spent the afternoon at the accountant's doing Mom's and Jane's taxes, then went out to dinner in a nice new place in Prescott. Finished up at a hockey game in RF at the new arena (across from new high school). Julia doesn't play much, since she's a freshman on a varsity team, but she played a little, and well. Ben recognizes her on the ice: "That's JULIA, number two two!! Nice to see Marty and Nate, too. I got a lot of exercise taking walks around the arena with Ben. He's very funny. One of my former chancellors was there (also had a granddaughter playing), and Ben told him "I'm four now, but just a LITTLE bit ago I was three!" Ben is not shy and will talk to anyone, including a constant stream to himself. Our dinner in Prescott (place where we went with Flo for Christmas brunch) was divine. Charlie had ahi tuna on a spinach salad that had every possible thing in it, including walnuts and figs. He loved every bite of it. I had beef shoulder prepared "sous vide," which to me means pressure cooked. Don't know quite how the guy does it, but it was really like a nice steak, medium rare. Infused with truffle oil and a gorgeous sauce. A little spinach bread pudding accompanied that. And we had ginger crème caramel for dessert, something I must try to make very soon.

Chicken massacrees. Of course my only one at the FBR was when I was living in Gainesville and the FBRians were in Mexico or somewhere and I was to take care of the place, going out twice a day. The main chores I remember were feeding the chickens, and chaining up and feeding the dogs in the evening and letting them loose in the morning. I came out one late afternoon to find that the dogs had broken into the chicken coop and killed a bunch of chickens and mortally injured several others. I had to beat a couple of chickens to death with a shovel, then dig a hole in the boggiest ground I could find to bury them all. As I was doing this, I began to have serious doubts about my life-long dream of living out in the country.

But here I am, and if we thought we could find anyone to feed them during our absences (and we were sure we could protect them from foxes and other predators -- though I'm sure Chas can do that), we'd have chickens.

Was that your third year at Covington, Suze? Was it new when you were in sixth grade? But it seems it was your first year with P.E. "in the lockers." Do explain. I loved Mr. Kallenbach, whom I also had for homeroom in eighth grade. I remember the quilted skirts, too. We must have just been on the brink of starting our own sewing. I remember the mean home ec. teacher. Southern accent.

I wonder what we argued about at Brenda's. I think this is about the last year that we were friends at school with our neighborhood friends. In fact, that may have been pretty much over already. What do you remember about that Suze?

"Affair in Trinidad!" I certainly remember that. Very steamy.

Sonny's Real Pit BBQ. Now there's an idea!