Charles is leaving the Navy.  Did I say that earlier?

Well, he is.  This morning he received his official separation date, which will be May 24th.  The primary concern at the moment is how he's going to get his Corvette home, seeing as how it won't get out of first gear.

Hard to drive from Connecticut to Texas in first gear.

Transporting it is very pricey indeed, and he's too young to rent a vehicle suitable for towing it.  This leaves either fixing it (which he's looking into today) or trying to sell it fast and eating the loss (he'd taken out a loan on it).

BTW, for those who recall his trip to NYC last summer where he and Joseph were allowed onto the Spiderman 3 set, the scene they were present for was the one where the crane is out of control.  I've not seen the show, so that's all I know.  There's a crane, and it's misbehaving.  He has photos of the photographer filming it (odd thing to take a picture of, isn't it?) and the actress, whatever her name is.

He says had he been wearing his dress blues instead of his dress whites, he'd have been able to actually be IN the scene as an extra, but there it is.  The blues are warm, so naturally he was in the cooler, more lightweight whites.  No film stardom for Charles. 

....but I spent mine being entertained and uplifted by the very finest of ballet action.  

Translation:  Today was Meredith and Margaret's ballet recital, which told the story of Hansel and Gretel.  Here's Margaret's dance:

She's on the far left, next to the bee.  ;^)  And here's Meredith's, where she's fifth from the left:

BTW, these were shot with my spiffy new toy, my Flip Video.  Works a treat!

Here are some snapshots taken with it, snagged from the video:







By the way, in that last she's not marching to a different drummer....she was leading the pack off the stage. 
 
The Flip Video stills are alright, but not as good as those taken with my regular camera:

That's Margaret sitting in the back, pretty much in the middle.  Each class was a particular element, i.e. flowers (Margaret), cotton candy (Meredith), villagers, etc.  This group perplexed me until the program cleared it up;  they're Hershey's Kisses:

Dancing chocolate.  Gotta love it.

Finally here came Marebear after her performance, escorted by Elaine:

Here are the girls with their dance instructor, whom they are crazy about:

I'm a bad, bad Aunt Anne, as I forgot to buy flowers. 

Margo Dean, whose studio it is, said this was their 58th spring performance.  Wanna hear something scary?  When I was about 9 years old, *I* took ballet at Margo Dean's studio!  Mercy Maud, how old is she now?

Guess ballet keeps one young. 

Warriorated?

Whatever, so far they're leading by 16 points, and the lead has been as high as 29 points.

Personally, I think I've put my finger on the problem.  It's those powder blue uniforms the Jazz are sporting.  How the dickens are a bunch of guys supposed to play serious basketball and act like professional athletes when togged out in POWDER BLUE?  Especially in Oakland, in front of the Warriors' fans?

Tell you what, ISTM the Warriors at home is akin to the Texas Aggies playing at home.  Those teams' fans are nuts about their respective teams.

Of course, it's not over yet, and the Jazz are showing life and closing the margin, but still....powder blue uniforms and in Oakland?

Ouch.

And so far there hasn't been a single Charles Barkley T-Mobile commercial, which I've really enjoyed.  Whether it's the one with the waiter asking "Are you his Dad?" or telling his companion (whose name escapes me) "If you make that putt, I'll put you into my Five" or whatshisname acknowledging it was impressive how Barkley had "squeezed into those tiny little shorts", I get a kick out of them. 

Considering how much time the two of 'em spend together, though, I'm at a loss as to what the point would be of them being in each other's "fives". 

Fierce wildfires anywhere are scary, heaven knows, but I'd think they're ten times scarier if it's on an island.  Especially if you can't swim.  According to the news, the authorities are evacuating the island with help from the Navy and the Marines.

Where's a drenching downpour when you need one?

I'll bet Dan can see the smoke from the Marine base. 

Regrettably I cannot claim to be AS smart as a 5th grader, seeing as how I couldn't accurately answer (actually, I couldn't even hazard a guess) the question:  In the human body, the adrenal glands generally sit above which organ?

In grade school?  This is a grade school question?  I'm going to be 56 next month (I want a box of Dark Chocolate Longhorns, available at Tom Thumb) and I hadn't a clue.  (The kidneys.  The contestant answered it correctly.)

However, I could correctly say which state holds the majority of Yellowstone Park (Wyoming), how many L's are in the term "awfully full", which ocean is surrounded by the Ring of Fire (Pacific, and it's a good thing the kid knew, for the mortgage-loan-officer-contestant had no idea), and which Virginia city was the capital of the Confederacy (Richmond).

That last was the question that brought the contestant - and the student, too - down, which is lamentable. 

The contestant before him was a lovely young woman who could not accurately answer the question:  Of these three, which is on the outside of an atom's nucleus....proton, electron, neutron?

She was utterly lost.  Jeff Foxworthy, the game show host, finally asked her point-blank if she knew what a proton is.

"Um, no," she admitted.

An electron?  Does she know what an electron is?

"No," she said ruefully.

Neutron?

"Nope."

After a pause, Foxworthy mused, "Of course, that's going to make it more difficult."

She dropped out, taking $50K home.

Okay, this is the show I want to go on. 

I just went to SuperTarget, which is less than two miles away.  Was inside perhaps 5-7 minutes.

When I approached the exit, I was more than astonished to see rain.  Not just rain....what a tepid word...but RAIN.  It was a downpour!  A gullywasher!  A frog strangler!

Nothing to give a clue that was about to happen when I parked and went in.  Some clouds around, but that's all.  Waited for a few minutes until it let up some and hastened to the van and drove home.

Where the streets and sidewalks are bone dry, with just a light sprinkle of rain falling. 

Look what I found at Wal-Mart just now:  

Life is good. 

I gave it serious effort, but try though I might I couldn't permanently avoid reading at least a little about the ghastly story of the kid with spiders in his ears.  

Why CNN considered that worthy of a headline, I cannot imagine, but then, who can plumb the uncharted depths of CNN.com's editors? 

So the tiresome, unpleasant story was prominently featured at various news sites, on Yahoo's! front page, and at a discussion board I visit some.  Eventually I gave in and read the first paragraph or two, and one aspect of the matter struck me more than any other...

Let me get this straight.  The little boy happily hauling the now-defunct spiders to school to show his friends was - little boys being what they are - understandable and only to be expected, but his MOTHER took them to her workplace? 

Is. She. NUTS?

Perhaps I'm showing my advanced age here, but somehow having had my kid be found to have spiders living in his ears would have caused me to take out a loan, if need be, so as to keep the story out of the news, yet this woman took them to her place of employment and displayed them to her co-workers? 

People are strange, no question about it.  

Okay, they're not perfect....no company is.

Still, an outfit I sent to Hannah was mailed at the cost of a little over $5, and took 4-5 days to arrive.

Think of that!  To get a package from Fort Worth to JAPAN cost about $5 and took no more than 5 days. 

Don't tell me that's not a simply incredible value.  It's equally astounding to me to think we can mail a letter to Svetlana in Russia for a whopping 84¢.  From Fort Worth to Samara, Russia for 84 measly cents! 

I really enjoy reflecting on things like this, y'know?  We are so blessed.

Today Yahoo! had their "Seven Easy Suppers" feature on its homepage.  Always being on the lookout for an easy supper, I clicked on the link.  A recipe for Classic Cobb Salad caught my eye, as Don is powerful fond of Cobb Salad, and I'm powerful fond of Don.

However, I'm not sure I'm quite this fond of him.     Here's the ingredient list: