Brrrr and BUB progress report

It is cold here in Atlanta. Before I could come to work this morning I had to dig out a sweater and long slacks, and man up with some pantyhose--oh wait, wrong expression--and some shoes other than sandals, and top it off with a trenchcoat before I could brave the cold air between the garage and my car. This is wrong, so very wrong. It isn't even November yet.

This global warming is a killer, man.

In other news, it just occured to me that we've now owned the Butt Ugly Boat for a bit more than a year. A fifty gallon drum of teak oil and who knows how any dollars later (actually I know how many dollars, I just don't want to think about it right now), things around the BUB look a little different. I've posted some "then" and "now" shots on my website here.

PS And if you don't know the history of our Butt Ugly Boat, a good place to start is here.

You peeps are joking, right?

Memo to the President and Members of Congress:

• The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
• Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
• Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
• War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and nothing has changed since the so-called War on Poverty started. It is broke.
  
• Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and both of them are broke.
  
• Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
• The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have failed in managing every government program under your control, while overspending our tax dollars and wasting our money on pork programs that do nothing more than help with your next reelection.

And now you want Americans to believe you can be trusted with a government run health care system?

Uh, not so much.

One a day is all he can handle

I'm not sure everyone knows about this, but recently Morley volunteered to work with a local animal rescue group intent on saving the rare Georgia antelope.

He had his first day of rescue work last week, and of course I went along to video him in action:

we're groovy, baby

One of the guys at the office had this waiting in my email this morning. How did he know that's what we did last weekend? Eerie...

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marital flashback

Every morning this week I've awoken thinking about what I was doing on the same day one year ago.

It was wedding week and things were hopping around here--the main thing hopping being my nerves as I scrambled around taking care of final details such as caterers and flowers and ministers and bagpipers and out of town guests.

Which I could have taken care of sooner except we had gone on a mission trip to Nicaragua the week before our wedding.

Because my nutjob husband-to-be had pursuaded me was a fabulous idea.

Because there is nothing that says "romance" like cleaning rats and chicken dookie out of barns, or standing in the scorching sun in a third world country ten minutes from the Equator painting a building instead of doing something lame like staying home and having someone paint my nails.

At the time I had murderous thoughts towards my beloved groom, but now I'm over it. Now I look back on it and laugh. Hahahahaha. See? I'm laughing.

Anyway, in the year since our wedding the events of that crazy week have formed a blurry memory of laugher and family and friends, and being insanely busy from morning until night. It was utterly exhausting and totally exhilarating, and we loved every single moment of it.

My BFF Carol was never more than ten feet from my side all week. She made sure the wedding train ran on time all week long and just about wore herself out in the process. (I later thanked her with All About Carol Day during which I had her pampered senseless at the spa, and being the good friend that I am, I had the exact same treatment just to make sure the quality of service was up to snuff).

There was a group shopping expedition where we accompanied my darling sister in law Carol to Nordstroms so she could stock up on cute shoes which she can never find in England. Watching someone else spend a butt load of dough on cute shoes was almost as much fun as us doing it ourselves.

There was the day that the two Carols, my girls, my son in law, and my grandsons helped clean up the Butt Ugly Boat. We had bought it just days before we left on the mission trip and it needed a serious defunk-ifying before we could spend our wedding night on it.

Then there was my bachelorette party and wine tasting on the Butt Ugly Boat which was a total blast as best as I can remember. Mommy had way too much medicine that night.

And there are so many other unforgetable memories packed into that week:

Like the memory of picking up the shipment of flowers from Hawaii that made the whole boat smell of orchids, and converting our friend Mike's houseboat into the world's largest floating florist chiller so the reception centerpieces wouldn't croak in the ungodly heat.

And the memories of our dock friends scurrying about taking care of endless last minute errands and making Morley and me feel like a million bucks.

And the party at Big Creek Tavern the night before the wedding where we partied like rock stars with our out-of-town family and friends. Our friend Tommy performed for us and we stayed up way past our bedtime that night. Also, we had way too much medicine.

And memories of Dennis being the greatest Best Man who ever lived. And being with family and friends on such a joyous and much anticipated occasion. And so on. And so on. And so on.

But mostly we remember this moment: