Monday, September 28, 2009

We're Too Beat to Blog


The retired-old-lady social whirlwind goes like this: 1) we invited 5 people to pot roast dinner on Friday: 9 people sat down to the table, repeating the phenomenon of the loaves and the fishes. A game of Cadillac followed. That was last weekend. 2) This weekend, we played mahjongg all afternoon Friday, and were invited to stay for pizza and play Cadillac, however members of our tai chi class finally got a bunco game together, so we ventured out of the neighborhood, drove to Mallet Bayou in Freeport, and played 22 rounds of bunco with a whole new set of ladies. It took forever, and S knocked over a lamp, but E won the "rubber duck" prize by rolling the last bunco of the evening, so we came home with as much money as we took. 3) Saturday, we ran to the grocery and bought supplies with which to make a rum cake, our contribution to "Cuban Night," a party Wendi intended to use as a vehicle for showing off her brand new kitchen. But since the entire ground floor of her and Pete's house was completely ruined by a burst pipe that gushed for two weeks, she instead showed off her incredible resilience by whomping up a grand meal on her grill and serving it at Susan's house. Which meal was preceded by margaritas in 1-gallon glasses (see Billye and E eyeing their first, above) and concluded with a round of "semi-sober" Cadillac. Neither of us has yet won this damn game.



In other news, Wayne, our neighbor across the street, went out to sea and brought us back a skinned and filleted King Mackerel, a big fish from which we've already had a couple of meals (fish tacos and a nice grilled steak). We've been to the eye doctor and gotten the scoop on our cataracts: the guy told E it was good she had them or else she'd be dead! (The drift being that once you're over 60, boink!) S got no such story, just the count. And the big YOLO (You Only Live Once) board Stand Up and Paddle race was held at Seaside. We snagged a cool pic from the SoWal blog, but as of this writing, we can't get the page to accept a reformatting that will include it, so BAH!

Now we're looking forward to a tag-team of visitors: Harold & Petra -- and then Von. And a break in the weather, any minute now . . .

Friday, September 25, 2009

Fauna

Folks! We're in the midst of a retired-old-lady social whirlwind. Too bizzy to report our own doings! So we offer you some cool views into the local ecosystem, little videos we've found engaging, something to entertain you until calm is restored.

Check out this link for sure, the red wolves of south Walton county!

http://www.ubu-online.com/the_pack.html

The fish swimming with the sharks are cobia:



Timeless!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

What?!?

Big doings here in the panhandle: the new Publix--a mere six minutes from Beach-A-Rama--opened on August 26, and we were among the first 1500 happy campers to walk thru the doors, netting us each a lurid green grocery bag and enough free samples to call it lunch.




Susan had us and Karen D (aka Kiki) and Julie over to play MahJongg last week, which lark was followed by dinner and a new-to-us card game, Cadillac. Which we loved! (Despite the fact that we lost: no small thing.) We got more of the intimate neighborhood feel when a small party of slightly tipsy folks crashed the party in the middle of the game--without even bothering to knock! After a brief cacaphonous interlude, the crashers departed and we got back to it.

By far and away, the most momentous events since our last posting were tied to a marvy visit over Labor Day Weekend from Tom & Jess and Wendy & Joel. E says, I don't know what to say about it: it was hilarious. So hilarious S almost wet her pants. Okay, maybe TMI.



But it _was_ fun, from our own game of Cadillac the first night, to hours of poker and Rummy-O (and even a bit of Skip-Bo and MahJongg), to an unforseen obsession with Tom & Pep's Wii Music handbell ringing game, to beach fun with the hordes and throngs, to the first Crimson Tide football game of the season, to some great meals cooked at B-A-R and a nice feast at Jambone, it was go go go and then go some more.





Due to the bell game, most of the weekend found somebody singing either Do-Re-Mi, Sukiyaki or Oh Tannenbaum! When they weren't hollering WHAT?!?!




We were sad to see everybody take off on Monday morning, so we thought to distract ourselves by playing bingo, but alas, we were so whipped that shortly after eating our bingo snack-shop lunch, we found ourselves nodding off in the middle of a 50/50-split-with-our-sponsor game. And one of us has nodded off in the middle of constructing this post . . .