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 . . .

The Adventures Continue

In addition to our one-year anniversary, there have been other firsts of late: Elizabeth participated in the canning of pears (And Sandy made more pepper jelly).

We went to two new restaurants: 1) Lin's Asian Cuisine, where beautiful vegetable carvings graced each plate and the world's coolest money-cat welcomed us in, and 2) Silver Sands at Harbor Docks, a great ramshackle joint on the water in Destin where the floors have been walked on so long the grain has risen. Good food both places, definitely Do Agains!

We survived our first Tropical Storm to make landfall within 20 miles of here: yowser, what a night!



We survived our first High Season: there has been a dramatic drop in the number of summer people--phew!

And (jaw-drop), finally our new dining room chairs arrived, having been dilly-dallying on a loading dock in Memphis for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow, when we host mahjongg with the local ladies, we'll test 'em out.

Are we Done Moving Yet?

On the one-year anniversary of our move to Beach-A-Rama (one year ago, weren't we stunned watching Frick and Frack make a hash of their packing job), we've made a list of what we miss most about Tuscaloosa.

1. It goes without saying that we miss our friends, but thanks to their generosity (and our good fortune to live at the beach) we get to see them pretty often and keep in touch with their lives.

2. Beyond that, we miss the CSA, the farmer's market, and the guy down the Tierce Patton Farm Road and his truck garden. Sunny Florida (or at least this very sandy part of it) has nothing much to offer in the way of produce, much less the truly gorgeous stuff to which we had grown accustomed.

3. We miss Scooter, tho what can be done about that?

But we're delighted that Squeaky has made such a great adjustment to the beach.

4. We miss Woodrow's (and Archibald's) and Taco Casa's tacos & sweet tea. But Oh Boy, are there some Great Restaurants here!

5. We miss the regular poker game, especially when it met at Wendy & Joel's house, where all manner of people were wont to drop in.

6. We miss Greenetrack Bingo and the proximity to the Silver Star--and for that matter Tunica--and the fact that we could split for the casinos whenever we wanted because Suni was ALWAYS available to catsit.

7. We miss the BuncoBabes--and having a neighborly connection with those women from around the lake.

Yet here we are in even closer touch with our neighbors--literally chatting whenever we want over the fence or on the beach walkover or in the middle of the street. It's kinda cool.

8. And natch we miss the lake itself, its constant change, reflections of it all moire-like on the great room ceiling.

9. And we miss the Focus on Senior Citizens Center, our introduction to tai chi, James (now gone, alas) and all the rest.

But here we've got Henry (and Ed) and Tai Chi as a martial art.

Turns out we can't even make this a top ten things because there's no number 10.

We celebrated our day all week long, playing bingo THREE times and eating our favorite dinner at Fat Clemenza's last night. In fact, we'll be eating it again tonite at home. Home!

Evidence

This blog has been remiss in that it failed to report that Tom & Jess gifted S w/a marvey new upgrade to the Wii, a Motion Plus sensor--and the suite of Wii Resort games that use it. One of the best BD prezzies ever! This bonus posting is designed not only to put that failure to rights, but to supply vindication! During the past couple of days, when S played table tennis, many of the in-game observers and some of her opponents have displayed bizarre facial features. When she reported this to T&J (who also have the game), their response, like that of her dear friend E, was that poor S must have gone 'round the bend. Well, c'mon, check this out:




Hope you caught the brief glimpse of Michael Jackson therein. Barack Obama has been appearing too, but we don't seem to have caught him on film. YET!

What follows is a slightly jerky taping of S taking on Bedroom Slipper Guy, filmed with her left hand as she played the game with her right. Note not only his "paddle," but the (eye)ball:

The Great Rearrange Continues

Since we're still without houseguests or most of our true neighbors (there are still PLENTY of summer people), we are continuing with our housekeeping chores. We took up all the carpet tiles in the living room, cycled out the grungiest and cycled in the cleanest, and sent two boxes of the dead back to the factory for recycling. In preparation for fall, if it ever comes, the Screen Queen came and repaired three of our screens, including the one into which Squeak had put a cat-sized hole. S moved on to the former laundry room (now the cat room), and attempted to at last put things where they might be useful and/or out of the way: this zone was where we stuffed things we didn't have a place for a year ago when we moved in and ever since we've been stuffing and stuffing.

Squeak, btw, has so far evaded the clutches of the jasmine, but she had a nasty set-to with a mean feral cat. We think that constant anxiety about letting her guard down with this beast on the prowl has made our poor kitten eschew the outdoor bathroom and return to her box. Oh, if only she had better aim! Part of the reorganization included moving the litter out of the specially-designed-for-it cupboard and away from the woodwork...

Mahjonng with Julie and Susan at Julie's condo was a major milestone: each of them seems to have become much less tentative and more imaginative in her play, and each of them won more than once. When the neighbors and the Canadians return this winter, we'll be ready to seriously rock and roll! Julie cooked up a feast: pork roast, green beans, yams, applesauce. We brought a bottle of wine and Suz brought brownies--scrumzo!

And Sunday's trip to the Bingo Castle yielded some nice surprises: S won a bingo and a half; E won a partial bingo; and S uncovered one of the $500 prizes on The Bingo Board. However, the Lotto tickets S bought at what looked to be the height of her streak have not yet netted us 23 million dollars. Which is why S has attempted to breathe new life into her greasiest t-shirts by tie-dying them a color that will hide some of the salsa and wine.

In an effort not to return to the amazingly crowded grocery store, where the checkout lines sometimes trail all the way back to the dairy section, we've been cooking down the larder at home. Most adventurous, perhaps, was S whomping up homemade ricotta; tastiest was E's batch of tomato sauce which has so far graced eggplant parmesan, stuffed peppers, cannelloni (homemade pasta, stuffed with the aforementioned ricotta), a quick noodle dinner--and is destined for tonight's fried eggplant. Which it might be time to macerate! Later, all.

Jasmine Attacks Household Pet!

Wimbledon is over (a bit anticlimactically, at least on the Women's side); the Tour de France is virtually over; Big Brother, however, marches on. At present we're rooting for Jordan, but she's on the block. Check out this footage and you might see in her what we do:


Our visit with Von was sweet.

Libations flowed, Rummy-O! tiles clicked and clacked, and V handed S her ass on the Wii Tennis Court. Turns out V has achieved "Pro Status" left-handed! Awesome!



After its injury in the Vet's parking lot, we finally took the Rav to get its dents pounded out and a new paint job. The greatest part of this adventure was borrowing Susan & Charlie's (well, Susan wants no part of it) croak truck ("croak" as in "fishing"). The thing makes as much noise as a helicopter, smells like a machine shop, and is sans power steering: merely riding around in it sets one on vibrate! But now the Rav looks great again--tho it lost its 30-A and SoWal stickers in the process. Our identity is in question for the moment.

We polished off Sandy's birthday with Bingo in our usual spot, but because on some level we don't want to believe that her winning streak is over (oh, it is, that seems certain), we indulged in a bonus bingo later in the week in PCB as well. In neither venue were we completely skunked, but the funds just aren't rolling in the way they were for a while there.

Karen of Karen & Frank (not to be confused with Karen of Karen & Phil) joined us for MahJongg last week--and won the second game she played! This coming Thursday we're meeting up with Susan & Julie at Julie's condo in Seagrove Beach for more MJ--curious to see Julie's digs: she's a quilter and her work is unusual in both its patterns and colors. (S knows this bc she saw some pix really fast while she was trying to help Susan get her Picassa software to behave.)

We're looking forward to Billye's return (next week, we hope): it's been a bit echoey around here with so many of the off-season folk away for the summer. We've been putting our extra free time to some good use, reorganizing the guest room closet and our office. Some of you have asked for pix of the new configuration, so, thanks to E's generosity to the birthday girl, you can check out a FlipVideo:

Wimbledon/Tour de France/Big Brother

These are the programs droning on as the backgound of our summer--which is in Full Swing. The most exciting events have been 1) the continuation of S's winning streak at bingo [followed by its inevitable attenuation and perhaps demise], 2) neighbor Susan's BD party in Frank & Karen's completed-just-in-time pool, 3) the discovery of a new bingo hall in Panama City Beach that's as close as the Bingo Castle when traffic on westward 98 is in summer gridlock. Which it almost always is.


The kitchen has been the source of some experiments: extensive online research led us to the conclusion that our popover pans had puffed their last puff and that nothing could be done to restore them. So we sucked it up and bought new ones and voila! Popovers--just in time for the Wimbledon Women's Final.

S tried to deal with the red hot chili pepper glut by making pepper jelly--oh, the Vesuvius of boiling over red goo E witnessed from her safe haven at the kitchen table. Let's just say that while the stuff is pretty and tastes just fine, its texture suffered horribly, perhaps from the boilover, perhaps from ????????? Renee (the egg/chicken/preserves lady), who avoids the use of pectin by putting up fruit exclusively, claims that pectin is always gummy, but we think not. More successful were the jars of pickled and marinated summer squash (because what else can one do with squash the size of one's forearm? aiyyy--our CSA does not quite have its act together), which will soon be ready to eat--yum!

We've been out and about doing jobs (car service, body work estimates for that crushed bumper) and hanging about the house ditto (new oven door hinges, AC condensation issues), shaking hands with and nodding agreeably to wrench-wristy types. And we're rearranging various storage places, planning to get rid of a couple of pieces of office furniture so we can more easily get to the windows, assuming the weather will ever be cool enough to open the damn things again. In addition to sampling a new bagel joint (nope) and eating breakfast once at The Donut Hole (crying children in spades), we returned to the Thai Elephant for a really swell meal--and ran into one of the hot local chefs, Philip MacDonald, who gave us a tip about a Turkish place in Ft. Walton Beach.

Susan (BD girl and MahJongg pal) with hubby Charlie (fisherman & wit)

Karen (foreground) & Frank (of the new pool) and Julie (quilter & MahJongger)

This weekend, some fun in store: a visit from Vonceil. Looking forward!