Ink!!

Well, I finally got a tattoo!! My wife & I went to Asheville last week even though I was sick. It was our fifth wedding anniversary, and on the second morning she said she had a surprise in store for me. Of course, being a man, I took this to mean the impending performance of some unspeakable bedroom antic, a request for which would normally be met by El Jeffe's icy stare and a vigorous refusal.

So imagine my genuine surprise when we arrived at the tattoo parlour, Liquid Dragon in Asheville, NC. I'd been wanting a tattoo for years, and had the design already in mind. Better yet, El Jeffe was having one, too!

3 hours later, minus some cash and mighty pleased with our new ink, out we came. El Jeffe had a peacock feather design on her foot, while I was sporting a lizard on my calf. Both were done from designs we gave to the artists, Sean and Mark, and I for one think they did a damned good job.

El Jeffe said it was so painful she'd never have another. I, on the other hand, can't have just one of anything, so I'm planning a tree frog for the other leg. I'll be glad when this one stops itching, though. I'm calling him Eddie L'Izzard.

Thought for the day - trust your wife to know what's good for you. Night, all.

A spoonful of sugar...

Well, we've all got a nasty bug. I've had it for 2 weeks now, but El Jeffe, Poppy & Tater are all spluttering away now. Our neighbours look at us as if we were a colony of lepers - and to be fair, when you see 2 people and 2 dogs, all walking along, coughing & hacking in unison, you'd be wise to steer clear.

So we're all on restricted duty for now, which has irked El Jeffe, who likes to be busy, but suits me just fine. I have pills, EH has pills, even the dogs have a bottle each, yet we're still coughing. I think a couple of pints of prune juice each would cure it all. Then we'd be afraid to cough.

Thought for the day - pucker up!

A kick in the pants

I've just looked on Chesapeake Bay Woman's blog and yet again she's put up a beautiful photo together with some advice on gardening. How in the name of Tony The Tiger does she find the time?

I also inquired about a Blogfest she's organizing (although she would be justified in denying my application on the grounds that this is my first blog post in amost a year.)

So here I go, promising to blog reglarly AND frequently. CBW has shamed me into it.

Here's a picture - Mathews crew regatta, a couple of weeks ago. See, I CAN do it. Now can I come to the Fest?

Bald to the Bone

Well, Tater, has had a bad week. He has a torn ACL, which he got wrestling with me while getting his monthly bath, and last Friday he had some corrective surgery on it. The vet re-aligned his knee and put in a little plate & some screws, which should sort his leg out.

Trouble is, he has to remain very still - no going out for walks, no running or jumping, no swimming - for four weeks, and of course he's bored witless already. Worse still, he's had half his butt shaved, and a nasty pain-patch and some surgical clips put on his leg. So last night he decided to chew his clips out in a fit of pique while El Jeffe and I were out walking Poppy.

We arrived back home at 2am this morning, after a harrowing trip to the emergency vet. The guy took pity on us, and did the reclosure for around $65, a real bargain for animal medicine, especially in the wee small hours. Needless to say, Tater got a good telling off and will be sporting the Cone of Shame (see earlier post, October '06) for a while. We're just glad the vet said that the clips he's eaten will pass harmlessly through, although I secretly hope he gets a little reminder as they go through his rear end. Kinda like wiping your butt with a ripped up magazine without first checking to see that you took all the staples out. Serves the little toad right.

Thought for the day - don't chew off more than you can swallow.

Night, all.

Just Looking...

Well, El Jeffe and I went househunting this weekend. Not for real, you understand. Just looking.
I was amazed just how much house you can buy currently, due to the economic downturn. We found a recently completed house in Gloucester, 3100 sq.ft, that was built inside in a kind of Moorish style, arched doorways, vaulted ceilings, huge atrium around the stairs. It was $351,000.
To put that in perspective, our current 3-bed rancher, at 1400sq.ft, was valued 2 years ago at $245,000. We'd probably get $215k for it now, at a stretch. In my home country of Britain, in the town I grew up in, that new house would go for S1000,000 at least,I kid you not.
Needless to say, we were crunching the numbers when we got back, and we were found wanting, but not by all that much. We could do it, but we'd be mortgage slaves, and that's no fun. I suggested we could salt Tater for a week or two and try to sell him as bison steaks to raise some cash, but El jeffe wouldn't hear of it. Sure was a nice house, though.

Thought for the day - an Englishman's home is his castle. Just make sure you pay the gong-farmer well. Night, all.

It's a fair cop

Well, El Jeffe and I had a run-in with the law this week. It all started Wednesday, when El Jeffe wanted to get her oil changed. We went to drop her car off (a 2006 Pontiac Solstice, very sleek) at the Pontiac dealership she bought it from. It was dark, around 11.30pm, as as we pulled into the lot she noticed a Solstice for sale, with the convertible top down.
Being an inherently good-natured soul, she wanted to put the top up on ot, less it should rain and fill the car with water. So we went up to it, saw the alarm wasn't on, and put up the hood. Then we dropped her keys in the night drop-box and left.
No sooner had we gotten back onto the highway than she started to wonder if she'd locked her car, so back to the dealership we went. Sure enough, there were not one but TWO Police cars on the lot, doubtless looking for someone trying to steal a Solstice.
After some sincere grovelling, and after checking both our ID's and our unlikely story, we were released, shaken but unharmed. We were lucky we weren't cuffed and detained - this isn't my first contact with local law enforcement - and we decided not to tell the people at the dealership. El Jeffe was very embarrassed, although I still think we did a good thing.

Thought for the day - no good deed ever goes unpunished. Night, all.

Back in the saddle

Well, I've decided to start blogging again, after an eighteen-month hiatus. I haven't posted on here since I was 38 years old and now I think about it, nothing much has changed. plenty has HAPPENED, but not much has CHANGED. El Jeffe is as delighful as she ever was, bless her, and Poppy and Tater are still damn cute. Poppy has aged a little, and isn't quite so energetic, but Tater is still a monster. At two years old and 94lbs, I think he's about os grown-up as he's going to get, which isn't very grown up. Brunhilde, my beloved expedition, is still going strong, albeit with a new transmission. I have another kayak on the way - more about that later.
It's nice to be back on the blogosphere.
Thought for the day - forty is the new fifty.
Night, all.

Murphy's Law

Well, there is a school of thought that says "just because things aren't going well, don't believe for a moment that they can't get worse." I lost my wallet (see last post) at the end of November, and had to replace the contents, which has been a little trying. The credit cards weren't ordered and El Jeffe and I had to call them, although to be fair they were with us within 48 hours following the second request. The ATM card was the same. The bank failed to order a new card, even after both El Jeffe and myself had asked them to do it. I finally recieved a card today, 19 days after reporting the loss. DMV were pretty fast considering their reputation. Worst of all, though, was the Green Card. It's a cool $260 to replace that, plus a trip to Maryland's Eastern Shore to get new fingerprints done. Why my fingerprints would change is beyond me, but there you go.

And just when it all seemed like an expensive mistake, what should happen? Yep, you guessed it, El Jeffe found my wallet. It was in a box in the garage. Needless to say the $260 can't be refunded, so I feel pretty wretched about the whole episode. It's almost like I'm being taunted by my own absent-mindedness. At least I won't have to drive to the Eastern Shore for the fingerprint session.

On a lighter note, I found the kayak I want to build. I looked at a number of designs and chose the Chesapeake 17 from Chesapeake Light Craft. The plans won't arrive until after Christmas, but I'm in no hurry. I'm collecting tools. Incidentally, I did some bargain hunting and managed to get 2 Black & Decker Workmates, an orbital sander, and 14 one-handed spring clamps for around $80 at Lowes. That's what I call a good deal. I priced them up in English Pounds and back home in Britain that lot would have been around $250 or so. Hooray for Uncle Sam is all I can say.

El Jeffe's Christmas present arrived this week. I bought her a German language course. She lived in Germany as a teenager, and loves the place, and we'll go there on vacation as soon as we can afford it. Meanwhile she wants us to learn German so we can talk about people without them knowing. I bet she learns the rude words first.

Thought for the day - things can always get worse. Night, all.

I Left My Wallet In El Segundo

Well, not actually in El Segundo. I left my wallet somewhere. I borrowed a kayak and went paddling on the mighty Beaverdam Lake at the weekend, and managed to lose my wallet. I think it fell out when I was looking for my truck keys after the trip. It hadn't been handed in the following day, so I've cancelled my cards just in case.

What a pain. The bank cards and credit cards, well they are easy to replace. But my drivers license has gone, and that cost me a morning at the DMV, which is about as much fun as one person can have without taking off their clothes. Worse still, my Green Card was in there, and that really will be a pain to replace. The INS want $260 just to process the replacement form, plus a trip to my local INS office, 40 miles away. Oh, and an additional visit to the Biometric Data Collection office so I can give them another fingerprint and retinal scan, all very high-tech. Wonderful system, shame the British government don't implement it. Trouble is, the Biometric Data Collection Center is conveniently located halfway up Virginia's Eastern Shore, which is a 4 hour drive even from mainland Virginia. I suppose if I get there and they are really peeved at me for losing my card they'll just drive me off the Eastern Shore into the Atlantic. That'll teach me to be more careful.

I had a nice trip on the lake, though. It was unseasonably warm for December, about 78 degrees, and sunny but windy. The lake was choppy, and covered in ducks, geese and the occasional heron. In fact, I liked it so much that I'm going to build a kayak. Buying one would be easier, I know, but where's the fun in that? Also, it'll be too cold and rainy to go on the water for about three months now, and I need a project to keep me out from under the feet of El Jeffe.

Thought for the day - rain drops, work stops. Night, all.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, it's Thanksgiving Day, and I'm so full I can barely reach across my groaning belly to type. We've had a steady stream of people here eating this afternoon, and El Jeffe has sent every one of them away fat & happy. My mother-in-law arrived first, with the younger brother-in-law at around 2pm. B.I.L upset Tater a little - Tater is only six months old, and he's a bit shy around people who get too close too quick - but then my father-in-law turned up. Tater likes him (he looked after Tater for a week when we first got him home) so things quietened down a lot. Never one to miss out on a good pud, my other brother-in-law, together with his wife and two daughters turned up some time later, notwithstanding the fact that they had already eaten one Thanksgiving dinner at her parents' house earlier today.

The food. My God, the food. To say El Jeffe is a good cook is like saying Michelangelo was a decent housepainter. Let me list it all for you. We had turkey; prime rib; stuffing; creamed spinach; Southern style green beans (put'em in water with a slice of bacon and boil the living daylights out of 'em for 45 minutes); gravy; potatoes mashed AND potatoes timbales; corn pudding; yeast rolls; cranberry and walnut relish; pretzel and strawberry salad; and banana pie. Was it all home-made? Why, yes it was. Magnificent.

Being English and all, I am still unfamiliar with Thanksgiving dinner, although judging by today's display of abject gluttony I could get used to it pretty fast. We don't do it in Britain, but do a similar thing at Christmas. Up around 8am, off to Church, then home by 10am. Eat at around 1pm - and I mean eat - to finish around 2.45, leaving plenty of time for the Queen's Speech on TV at 3pm. Then we can lie around in a turkey-induced haze while the big Xmas movie comes on, and you can bet it'll be either Ice Station Zebra, The Poseidon Adventure or The Great Escape. Sounds a lot like Thanksgiving, doesn't it?

So I'm doing my best to fit in with all yall's celebrations, with help from El Jeffe, and I think I'm doing a pretty grand job too. Now if you'll excuse me a moment, I'm going to see if I can make room for just one more piece of banana pie.

Thought for the day - be thankful. Night, all.

Brunhilde goes under the knife

Well, I had to leave my beloved Ford Expedition, Brunhilde, at the menders tonight. The dreaded 'service engine' light came on this morning, which means it's something complicated, and probably expensive. Usually I can do my own repairs on mechanical stuff. I spent many years running cheap cars with no money to spend on them, and so I learned to fix them myself. Also, I had a couple of old motorcycles that I restored to good condition in my garage and shed, which taught me a lot about vehicles.

It used to be that working on cars, and bikes, for that matter, was relatively simple. Not exactly easy, mind - it was still hard, dirty work, usually costing me some skin and blood - but it was something your average hump with a little sense could do. Breakdowns meant exactly that - something had either worn away or broken, and it was a matter of taking off the old part and putting in a new one to get things running again. Sometimes it wasn't even as hard as that - one of my cars, a 1976 Triumph Dolomite, had sills (rocker panels to you, Uncle Sam) that were made mostly from concrete and chicken wire. And while I've never actually replaced a broken fan belt with a pair of nylon hose, as in the urban legend, I can vouch for the 'raw egg in the radiator' trick to get a car - a 1978 Mini 1000 - drivable, so it can limp home to be fixed properly.

But technology has moved on since then. I first experienced this with my first 'proper' car, a 1989 Toyota MR2. Fantastic car, 40mpg, looked like a little Ferrari, handled like a go kart, and fast, for a 1.6 engine. The speedo went to 140mph but I could never get more than 134 out of it. But to work on it ? Worse than the Mini. No room in the engine bay (it was behind the seats) and it was so low you couldn't get the jack beneath it.

Likewise my Expedition. Everything on it is so damned BIG !!!! I had a flat on it a couple of months back, and the spare was so heavy I could barely pick it up. The hood is level with my chest. And that engine (wonderful engine by the way, V8 5.4 litre, smooth, bags of torque) is tucked right down beneath the bulkhead, safely away from the owner. Apparently, Ford recommend that if their mechanic needs to work on the cylinder heads, it's easier to raise the body - yes, to detach the entire car from the chassis and jack it up a bit - than to remove bits and pieces to get access to the engine.

So my Brunhilde is spending the night at the repair garage. Yes, I know modern cars are cleaner and more efficient, and it's easier to have the car talk to the computer about OBD codes and all that jazz, but I do miss the smell of hot metal and Castol R sometimes.

Thought for the day - the whole can be more than the sum of the parts. Night, all.

Tykes on a plane...

Well, I see from the news that those brave souls in charge of protecting our airports and aircraft from attack have been a little to zealous again. The newspaper 'Emirates Today' details an event at Dubai Airport, in which Suhail Saleh,a two-year-old boy was prevented from boarding a United Arab Emirates plane bound for Turkey. Apparently his name appeared on an arrest warrant. Not only that, but his eye colour and hair colour also matched those detailed in the warrant. The newspaper neglected to mention if the suspect's estimated height, weight or age were also close matches to those of little Suhail. Fortunately, a 'probe' into the circumstances satisfied officials that the tiny terror was indeed merely a tourist, and fears were eased further when it was discovered that he was travelling with his Dad, Abdullah. The little feller was allowed to fly at last, but the potential threat had been noted - a possible security procedure update will alert airport staff to detain for questioning anyone acting suspiciously and trying to board a flight wearing a vomit-stained romper suit.

Tater and Poppy have gotten quite used to sleeping on our bed, and at a combined weight of around 115 pounds, they take up a lot of room. So El Jeffe and I have come up with a solution. Make them sleep on the floor ? Not on your life. We're buying a king-sized bed. I just hope the dogs like the mattress - the salesperson in the bed store wouldn't let them try any beds out.

Thought for the day - you can't be too careful. Night, all.

Drop Sam Colt, cowboy !!

Well, it's almost time for the mid-term elections, and I won't be sorry to see the end of the campaigning. There are four candidates in Virginia, and they've all been running campaign ads on TV for what seems like months now. Trouble is, they're all so negative. We have Thelma Drake - Phil Kellum is the Devil's doughboy; James Webb - George Allen wears Beelzebub's sports bra etc. etc. And so it's been every evening for weeks. Come on, people, we need to see some positive campaigning. I mean, I'm not going to vote for you just because you tell me Thelma Drake eats live babies, or that Phil Kellum is Satan's spawn or whatever. Where do you stand on, say, immigration, or education, or (dare I say it) foreign policy ? Alright, I can't actually vote anyway as I'm not a citizen yet, but please, let's have some grown-up politicking on things like taxes, or law & order, not this mud-slinging competition.

Speaking of law and order, El Jeffe and myself celebrated Halloween last night with Poppy & Tater. El Jeffe bought them an outfit each to go trick-or-treating in. I personally think that dogs wearing clothes is very, very wrong, but there you go. And it has to be said, the Boy did look cute in his sheriff's outfit.

Thought for the day - people in glass house shouldn't throw stones. Night, all.

Open Sesame

Well, the dedicated X-ray suite at the orthopedic surgeon's offices which everyone has been waiting for is now open, finally. I was meant to start work there in the first week of August, but due to problems with construction, installation, commissioning and power outages the project has dragged on until now. But, as of 8am this morning, we are, as they say at NASA, "good to go."

It has to be said that so far it seems to be a decent place to work. The building has recently (within the last year) been fitted out, and apart from a few spots where the roof has leaked it looks pretty good for a doctor's office. My X-ray machine seemed to function fairly well all day, although all the preset kVp/mAs settings are gone after the power outage, so I have to set my own (that's where I decide how much radiation you get, whether I'm just tickling you to get through your finger or blasting the living daylights out of you to get through your entire chest.) I had a quick look at the manuals for it and I think I may be able to program the thing myself - after all, how hard can it be ?

As luck would have it, a sales rep from a drug company came up to 'educate physicians on new development within the company product range' or, more precisely, to peddle drugs. Legal ones, of course. One of the sales rep's duties is to buy lunch for the staff, and not to be cheap doing it. Unfortunately the best Gloucester has to offer is Applebee's so I settled for Santa Fe Chicken Salad. When I was on clinical training at Oyster Point the grub came from a very expensive restaurant called Christaldi's, but beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

Tater is a thief. I made a peanut butter sandwich tonight, and was reaching for a plate to put it on when he leapt up from behind me and stole it. I chased him into the living room, but he'd buried himself in the sofa before I could catch him and bitten a huge chunk off by the time I prized open his jaws. Bad lad, he's meant to be on a wheat-free diet. I think this is the canine equivalent of falling off the wagon.

Thought for the day - if someone's gonna pee, have them in the tent peeing out, not outside the tent peeing in. Night, all

Don't fence me in...

Well, Poppy has gotten out of the yard. Again. After El Jeffe and I spent twelve hundred bucks and hours of hard work erecting a six-foot fence, then dog-proofing it, or so we thought, by burying rebar 3 inches apart to a depth of about 2 feet along the entire fence line, she just appeared in the street outside my window. She's been out for around 10 hours now, and shows no sign of returning. Not that she's gone far, mind. I can hear her barking playfully outside as I write this. She sees it as a game, and won't come in until she's bored, or tired, or hungry, or wet.

We're still unsure exactly how she's getting out, so this time I've been pumping Tater for information. So far the little stoolie has been very unhelpful, but we have made some progress:

They dug three tunnels, Tom, Dick and Harry;
Tom went from under the kitchen window into the next door's yard under the East wall;
Dick went North from beside the garage side entrance;
Harry went the deepest, and ran from beneath the deck, straight under the fence to the South and 200 yards into the trees beyond;
The dirt was hidden by eating it, then pooing it out onto the excercise yard;
When it looked like the plot would be discovered, they stopped Dick & Tom and concentrated solely on Harry, barking at night to cover up the sound of the digging.

That's it for now. I'm planning to put Tater in the cooler for a week to see if that softens him up. Although I doubt he's been making fake Luftwaffe uniforms by sewing old kibble sacks together - he hasn't got any thumbs to hold the needle. I just hope I don't look out of my window to see Poppy trying to clear next door's garden fence on a stolen motorcycle.

Thought for the day - you can't polish a turd. Night, all.

You shall have a fishy when the boat comes in...

Well, I went deep-sea fishing on Saturday. I drove down to North Carolina's Oregon Inlet on Friday night and met up with my 2 fathers-in-law, my brother-in-law, his wife and some of their friends. We woke at 4am Saturday (goodness me, these boat people like an early start) and were on the dock for 4.45am. McDonalds was shut despite assurances from the hotel desk person that it wouldn't be, so breakfast was coffee and muffins at the dockside store. Not that it mattered, because the journey out to the fishing grounds was rough, with a 7-ft swell, and my breakfast ended up in the boat's head. In my defence, though, my father-in-law was also sick, and he spent 40 years in the Navy. Once i'd voided my breakfast, however, I was fine.

Dawn on the ocean was beautiful, and after a cold start the weather couldn't have been better. Forty miles off shore we found a school of tuna and were soon hauling them in, hard work if like me you've never done it before. The First Mate was working hard to keep all the lines straight and gaff the tuna as we pulled them in, and by lunchtime we'd caught our limit of eighteen fish, each weighing around 35lb.

The Mate told us a couple of intersting things about the Nag's Head area. Firstly, it got the name in the 1700's when local people would tie a pole and a spinnaker to a horse and lead it through the dunes during a storm to lure ships into the shallow coastal waters, where they would wreck and the locals would plunder the cargo when it washed ashore. Secondly, the people would know if a ship had foundered in the night when bananas would wash up onto the beach in the morning tide. Hence, it's bad luck to bring bananas onto a boat.

Back at the dock, we had the guys at the packing house to gut our fish (a very messy business; we were glad to pay them handsomely to do it) and headed home. I spent an hour or so chopping the fillets into 44 inch-thick steaks for the freezer. Our friends and neighbours had some, and of course Poppy and Tater tried some and liked it, and we still have enough tuna to make us grow fins eating it !! Next time I go, I hope El Jeffe can come too.

Thought for the day - if I can't take it with me, I'm not going. Night, all.

Disturbing the peace...

Well, big news in the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette this week, a possum broke into the ABC store (that's the off-license to us Brits) and wreaked havoc among the booze. Apparently, he was heard by a passer-by, presumably during a particularly noisy frenzy of drunken havoc-wreaking, and the police were summoned to investigate. They opened the store and swamped the building with armed officers, clearly concerned with the possibility of real civil unrest. An eye-witness told this write "The possum was totally enraged. It was surrounded by empty bottles and was staggering around, growling and waving its paws menacingly. I was terrified."
Fortunately, the combined forces of Gloucester and Mathews Police Special Response Squads were able to subdue the beast, who was taken to jail straight from the scene, to be arraigned after it sobered up the following day. "My men took control of the situation, using nightsticks and stun grenades to overwhelm the criminal," said one senior Gloucester officer. His counterpart with Mathews police "We employed justifiable force with the mace and tazer. You can't be too careful these days." The owner of the ABC store was unavailable for comment, but the Night Manager was concerned with the legacy of fear following the incident. "I just want to know who will protect us once he's out of jail. Possums have long memories. It's like crossing the Mafia - you mess with one, you mess with them all."

Thought for the day - you shouldn't drink if you get nasty. Night, all.

The Cone Of Shame

Poor Tater!! The Boy hasn't had a good week at all. he's been scratching for a fortnight or so, and the vet says it's an allergy, probably to something he's eating, which to be honest doesn't really narrow it down much. So he's on a diet, the Science Diet Lamb & Rice Puppy Formula. He's not allowed to eat normal dog food, which pretty much means that Poppy 's on the same diet. No treats, no eating food from the table, no nuthin'. I even saw El Jeffe feeding the poor thing carrots this evening, and he was wolfing them down like they were chicken legs. He's also had a steroid shot, which calms the itch for 4 days or so but makes him pee like a racehorse. We're awake 3 times each night just to stop him flooding the kitchen. Worst of all, though, he has to wear The Cone Of Shame. Oh, the ignominy of it, such a handsome little chap, forced into public ridicule. I asked him if he could get BBC America on it. He wasn't amused. Poppy thinks it's hilarious, especially because Tater can't see past the edge of the cone and bumps into stuff until he just sits, grumbling and refusing to move. Oh, and he's hurt his shoulder, so he can't go on long walks for a month. Or chase stuff. Or go swimming. Nothing to do but eat carrots and bite Daddy. Life's hard for a little dog. And until his sharp little puppy teeth are gone, it's not great for his owners, either.

Thought for the day - Dogs have owners. Cats have staff. Night, all.

Starry, starry night

Well, I've been looking at horoscopes recently, more out of boredom than anything else. I went to Britain for 10 days (hence no recent posts-more about the trip later) and read newspapers on the flight to alleviate the boredom on the flights to and from. And what I discovered was astounding.

Not that I believe much, if any, of what I read. I mean, who really knows if Fate is controlled by a Supreme Being, or by God, or by skyblue pink spacemonkeys. Well maybe David Icke does, but for the rest of us it's a mystery. What I do know is that whatever is driving the existential bus, it is unlikely to be communicating with the human race by telling Mystic Meg or whoever to put the future on page 34 of The Daily Blurb. However, a lot of people would disagree, so to quench the fire of their anger at my scepticism, I've decided to commune with the Cosmos and see what I can come up with myself. Here goes...

Aquarius - beware the Ides of March, and steer clear of orange for the next few days. Perhaps a spell as a transvestite would help show you the way.

Cancer - you are vindictive with your claws and pincers. My advice is, do unto others as they woud do unto you. Only make sure you do it first.

Capricorn - Tuesday next could hold a cathartic experience for you, so make sure you take some clean knickers to work.

Pisces - get a tattoo, your Mum will love it. Preferably somewhere pink and delicate where your Mum hopefully will never see it. Also, if you swallow metaphorical chewing gum, it will wrap around your metaphorical heart and kill you. Metaphorically, of course.

Aries - proud of your horns, are you, Mr Ram ? Well, the Pennsylvania Dutch have a word for what you have, taken from the Low German dialect. It's 'Arschnoedel.'

Taurus - you are such a stud, you could have any starsign you want. Just make sure it's not Hernia, the Contortionist, or you might end up at the Clap Clinic by next weekend.

Gemini - twins, kinky...

Leo - hear me roar, baby. You'd get on well with Gemini.

Virgo - stay away from Gemini. And Taurus.

Sagittarius - if you love someone, set them free. If they don't come back, hunt them down and kill them

Libra - the scales. Stay out of McDonalds of you don't want to be mistaken for Collosus, the Pie-Eater.

Scorpio - my advice is this: never hit your Mother with a shovel, it leaves a bad impression in her head.

See? With a few moments of quiet contemplation and a friend at the local newspaper office who owes you a favour, you too can have you own horoscope column.

Please note, this blog neither agrees nor disagrees, nor indeed understands, the views and opinion of David Icke, and any resemblance of the Author to a member of the alleged lizard-headed master race is entirely incidental.

Thought for the day - it's a long way to the top if you want to rock'n'roll. Night, all.

An ill wind...

Well, we've survived Hurricane Ernesto, albeit with some clearing up to do. By the time it reached Gloucester County, Ernesto had been downgraded to a Tropical Depression (although he looked like he was still in his Manic phase to me.) We had very high winds - I was working at the hospital during most of it, but El Jeffe was at home, and she said there was debris flying. My in-laws down in Yorktown had a tree down behind the house, but fortunately it missed their house, and the neighbours' house. We all had power outages, Yorktown is still out as I write this, but we had our power back by yesterday at around 4pm. Sixty percent of Gloucester County, and all of Mathews County was blacked out for a while, but our house is on the same grid as the Hospital I work at, so we're usually among the first to be fixed.



The water is a different matter. In the two years we've lived here the water has never come so close to the house. Beaverdam Creek, the little waterway that crosses our yard, is usually about 4 feet across and maybe one foot deep in parts. Tonight it's about 40 yards across and has risen around seven feet, coming alarmingly close to the house. Now we know why our mortgage people made us buy flood insurance for a house on a bluff. Also, the creek is full of beasts, including snakes. El Jeffe is terrified of them. I'm not scared of them but I sure don't want to get bitten. We've seen blacksnakes in the yard, and there are cottonmouths in the area. Tater and Poppy haven't been allowed near the water because of the snakes, and Tater isn't big enough and Poppy can't be trusted not to run away.

Well, that's about it - just lots of clearing up debris in the yard today. The hospital was hopping yesterday with car accidents all over and the ER bursting at the seams.

Thought for the day - life's a trip. Bring a paddle. Night, all.