North Beach

Gainesville

The paper file purge at work continues. Yesterday I finished clearing out the second drawer (thought I'd finished it Friday, but only got halfway through it). Today I took a look through the remaining six drawers to get an idea of how fast they'd go-- and to my absolute delight, discovered that the second cabinet has only ONE of the four drawers full of files!! I cleared that one out today, so now instead of six, I have only two drawers to go-- huzzah!

And speaking of huzzah's, the last of a certain monthly meeting was today. We all applauded when it was over-- partly to send the chair off to her next job with a flourish, but partly in relief also.

Meant yesterday to post a link to my countdown page. Hey kids! Follow along as we approach R-Day, and know up to the second how long until actual R. Not exactly tearing of the square, but close.

Things went better for Bill today: fewer meetings, the carrel rebuilds are back on schedule, and (a very big deal), the building passed its final inspection by the Fire Marshall. Looks like we may actually be able to open July 18, as scheduled. It will be a "soft opening" -- no hoopla. The official hoopla is to be scheduled for early in Fall semester. Alas, our in-house Starbucks lags far behind everything else, to late to provide me with any joy. And who knows what is to become of our crumbling colonade.

We made it home around 6:45, so I was able to fix dinner-- a Greek chicken thing. Discovered that cooked spaghetti squash does not freeze well. Too bad, as it would be nice to be able to have that available to put things like Greek chicken over on short notice.

My favorite magazine came today: Hogan's Alley. It is unspeakably wonderful-- I love each and every page. It takes me weeks to read through one, though-- and I have most of the backfile to enjoy post-retirement. This one includes a feature on Time for Beany-- I only remember the TV show, but later on it was turned into an animated cartoon. The article brought back floods of wonderful memories about that show and why we loved it so-- many of the characters, including Cecil the Sea Sick Sea Serpent, were voiced by Stan Freberg! The show was shot live, five days a week (15 minutes long) for years, and a lot of the best of stuff was the result of ad libs by Freberg and the creator, Bob Clampett. Sandy, do you remember Beany at all? And that's just one of a zillion features-- others include Dennis the Menace, Pogo, martial arts ads in comic books, comic strips and sheet music, and editorial cartoons, to name only a few (that happen to be featured on the cover). Issues also reprint long runs of old obscure strips and old comics-related ads... well, you can see the attraction.

Nice synopsis of the '85 European trip, Mom. I'd completely forgotten that our last stop before flying home was actually in Mannheim and not Frankfurt. It's the kind of detail that brings so many other memories back.

Glad you're back into your routines. Twenty minutes at a time seems like plenty for organ practice-- I'd suggest 15, actually, i.e., stop BEFORE the pain sets in. Set your timer.

What did you use to clean the gasket crud? I need to work on the stuff that's acculumated on Castor and Pollux-- I keep their outsides shined up as part of my towel washing routine, but don't know how to deal with the gasket thing.

I heard today that even in Canada they are having record numbers of days in the 90's-- hence the latest FBoFW storyline (Michael and the noisy ceiling fan). I'm not surprised you're getting hit by this regime also. Jokes abound about seaside property on the arctic "coast" being snapped up by developers . If only it were that simple. Good luck.

And speaking of such strangeness, the last few days we've seen the caladiums I planted 4-5 years ago pop up in what is now lawn. Usually they appear in April, but it has been so miserably dry this year that it's only now they've had enough water to activate themselves. Just another reason why they are so popular in Florida-- like azaleas, they are ready to roll with the weather punches they face here.