Watercolours ~

M keeps pointing out the beauty of the fall colours hereabouts. She's right, of course, but the water-soaked dreariness of the recent days' weather and the curtain of dullness draped over my brain by this cold have affected my enjoyment of it all. Plus my voluntary confinement to quarters to try to get on top of this cold. The latter effort is succeeding but it's gonna take several more days for my head to un-tighten.

I'm not complaining about the weather, though, especially since M&I view it as Taking One for the Team. As Dr Brado and family were launching for Florida last weekend, the Wx Channel was devoting minutes at a time to the "cut-off low" they expected to develop over the Sunshine State which, they predicted, would dump rain on Central Florida virtually the whole time the Nashville crew was to be there. M promptly started praying about it and voila, the low escaped Florida, never to darken its skies, and scooted up to become the considerable mid-Atlantic coastal storm of the last few days. Better us than them.

In fact, that storm has produced far more in the way of wind than any of the much-ballyhooed tropical storms etc that tracked thru here in late summer. In those instances, there were warning, advisiories, etc etc and the winds never topped maybe 25mph. THIS time, the house was filled with sound of the moaning winds, the trees rocked back and forth, and for many hours yesterday the steady wind was in the mid-20's with gusts to the low 40's. The NWS noted this in its routine forecats but made no fuss about it. If I were a non-tropical storm, I would feel Dissed.

Brady called late yesterday afternoon to report that after three fun-packed days in MouseWorld, they were happily satiated and heading home today. He noted J-Man, unlike his grandfather (who would not ride roller-coasters until well into his teens), is a coaster fiend and rode a couple of adult-grade rides. Natalie enjoyed age-appropriate attractions and was mesmerized by all the princesses and living cartoon characters. Jacob immediately appreciated that it wasn't REALLY Donald Duck but had to be a person inside a costume. However, he WAS taken in by the roles played by actual people such as Snow White. In fact, as they walked by her castle late one evening Jacob said they should be quiet because "they might be sleeping" inside.

Tidewater Life: the termite man came today to do their annual inspection on Greystone. Termites and climate-induced wood rot are no joke down here and people take 'em seriously. The guy spent over an hour inside and under the house and gave it a clean bill of unbugginess.

Last eve the Coachmen were the featured act at the Grove Christian Center fundraiser at our Club. Some friends of ours organized the event and it was attended by over 150 people. Interestingly, in the live-auction part, a personal appearance by our group went for $700, to a couple from Ford's Colony. We'll do the gig sometime this spring at their house. They didn't get to our part of the evening until 8:45pm and by then the audience was chatty and restless. We did about 20 minutes worth and called it a night. Happily, my voice did fine, fortified by heavy doses of cold medicine.

On the Magic Carpet front: our Cruise Memorial Turkish Rug (runner, actually) arrived this afternoon. M is out having her hair done so I'll wait for her before deploying it.

That's about it from here. Happy Friday ~