Not me, heaven knows!  

Charles.  In June of 2005 he got the Skylark (courtesy of us).

Last summer he bought the attractive, yet ultimately beknighted, Corvette.

He just brought home this summer's automotive offering, a Focus:

Sweet, eh?  He got it from his uncle, the Chevy dealer manager, who gave him employee pricing on it. 

Let's hope third time's a charm and this one isn't smushed in an accident as were the other two. 

Over at Elaine's blog there are a couple of photos of Meredith and Margaret as they began their homeschool year on Tuesday, and last night Matt sent some photos of Bethany and Benjamin as they set forth on their academic adventure (Bethany began 2d grade, while Benjamin started kindergarten, same as Meredith).  Here are a few of them:

By jingo, they're straining at the bit and rarin' to go, aren't they?     Here's Benjamin getting down to business in his new schoolroom:

After getting him settled in, it was on to Bethany's class, and my, but she was thrilled at the prospect:

Okay, it's barely conceivable that was more of a "Gosh, Daddy, could you make me any more conspicuous?!?" expression.    Here she is, getting started:

God's blessings on all the children who either have begun their new season of learning, or are preparing to. 

Truth be told, I don't especially enjoy the way he takes people by surprise, meaning he's aware he's heading into a competition but his bushwhacked competitor is wholly unprepared. It's particularly reprehensible that the blindsided competitors are often flat-out tricked by being told they're making a pilot for a new FoodTV show.

Wouldn't that be a kick in the head? There you are, all excited about the possibility of having your own show, doubtless telling all your family and friends about it, then WHAMMO!....here comes Bobby Flay strutting in, cheerily informing you there is no pilot and instead it's a throwdown, and are you up for the challenge?

Gee, thanks, buddy. The cameras are rolling, your family, friends and customers are gathered, and you've just learned you'd been hoodwinked regarding the presumed pilot and instead the whole thing was a set-up for Flay's show.

Why good ol' Bobby doesn't get his nose pushed in, I can't think. I guess because of those cameras.

Tell you what, I'd be mad as fire, were he to pull that stunt on me. Wanna challenge me to a throwdown? Fine. Great. Call me and ask.

Fortunately he has a tendency to lose, largely due to "improving" the "signature dish" until it may taste great but it's not recognizable as being whatever it is it's supposed to be. He lost the Chicken Cacciatore throwdown like that, and tonight he lost the Caribbean Jerk ribeye throwdown. Steak was tender, flavor was good, but according to the judges it wasn't exactly what you'd call "Caribbean jerk".

Used to be virtually all books sold by Amazon were discounted, but now it seems to only be best-sellers, with ordinary books selling for full retail.

Well, that's disappointing. 

Now here's a headline I've never seen before:

Spontaneous combustion fears close AISD playgrounds.

Here's the story:

By WFAA-TV Staff Reports

ARLINGTON - The
superintendent of the Arlington Independent School District announced
that the district will be closing nearly two dozen playgrounds he said
are at risk of spontaneous combustion.

It actually happened last week? 

P.S. Here's a link to video showing the fire that consumed a playground frighteningly fast. 

Thirty-six years ago today, this was the scene at All Saints' Episcopal church and River Crest Country Club:

Down in the basement (or whatever you'd call the below-ground area with the classrooms, etc.) it was time for family photos:

The pretty girl in blue is my sister, Jeanne, who posts here as Woollie, the handsome young man on the right is my brother, Louis, who posts - very occasionally - as Legalsea, the monkey-faced munchkin is my sister, Elaine (toddlers almost inevitably goof up formal photos, don't they?), and there are Mom and Dad with me.

I'm the bride. 

You know, it's a common thing to hear women gripe about their wedding dresses years later, but I've never done that.  I loved it then and I love it now.  Wouldn't change it for the world.  Thanks, Mom and Dad!  It was a gorgeous dress, IMO.  

After the ceremony, leaving the church for the chartered bus to take the wedding party and family to the reception:

Twenty years old and on top of the world, by jingo!   

It was a beautiful wedding cake:

Still have the topper, extremely fragile and rather the worse for wear, in the bedroom under a glass dome.

Thirty-six years, six children, as-near-eight-grandchildren-as-makes-no-difference later, here we still are. 

I love you, Donald!  Always have....always will.  

We're watching a show on the Travel Channel about how Snapple's made, and the woman who hosts it marveled about how Snapple has thirty different flavors, providing consumers "endless choices".

Don pointed out that consumers actually have thirty choices. 

Next week is the 17th birthday of Dmitry, to our astonishment.  It's difficult to say with any degree of certainty which of us is most astonished to see this benchmark approach, Dmitry or me.  

He was this little guy when we adopted him almost four years ago!  Where'd the little guy go? 

Well, wherever he went, he's not here now, and in his place is a startlingly handsome (to his mother's fond eye, at least) young man.  The other day I posted about Sveta's birthday gift that the postman didn't even try to deliver, so we had to go fetch it the next day; here's a photo of him with one or two of the gifts and the card:

Tell you what, had my grandmother been in the car when Dmitry pulled the wooden snake out of the box, she'd have exited said car without regard to life or limb. 

Ah, and this morning a competent a/c tech arrived to unclog whatever it is needed unclogging by blasting air through it, right?  And on Wednesday the incompetent one said the a/c drained into a pipe under the master bathroom sink?

Combine those two factoids and the result is what I saw when I went back there an hour or two later:

That was a surprise. 

This morning about 8:45 or so the aforementioned Matt showed up, and twenty minutes later he was on his way, having located the problem....which was what Don thought it was, a clog in a pipe leading to or from (I'm unclear on that point) a drain pan.  Matt had to cut the pipe, then use a machine to blast air through it in both directions to clear out the clog, then put the pipe back together again.

Problem solved.

The office will send me a bill for $70.

So how come the Arthur Hagar guy completely missed a problem that not only Matt identified, but also my telephone-system-salesman husband?