It's Saturday morning and I am sitting in the basement on our blue and white checkered couch. Marie is curled up next to me and snickering at me as I speak the words that I am w-r-i-t-i-n-g. She is giving me a lot of grief, but it's good grief, as Charlie Brown would say. Since it is Saturday, we don't have a lot to do. So we are watching Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. We are learning many new things. For instance, the oil from processed pig food is sold to the cosmetics industry for use in cosmetic products like face cream and other such stuff. What else will we be doing today? We may go to a flee market.

It rained a lot yesterday--just about all day--and that was good because we had been living on a deficit, something like a three inch deficit. Today there is no rain yet. So I might get a run in before the day is through. Otherwise, its just this flee market business and a little bit more packing.

The presidential race is about to get going. We now know the candidates, even is Sarah Paline is a relatively unknown name. Monday is the beginning of the Republican convention unless hurricane Gustav makes landfall, in which case they may have to fall back to another plan. The Democrats had a very successful convention and Barack Obama gave one of the most inspiring speeches that I have ever heard. One for the ages. It will be a very good election campaign to watch.

So Marie just got a Xanga and her name is "UchiziKamaNdizi." I expect that is just gobblygook to most of you but I can assure you that it is not. It is in fact Swahili and when translated, translates thusly, "Crazy like a banana." Why? I don't know why. It was my idea. Marie wanted "Uchizi," but that was taken. So I suggested, as any clear thinking human would to ad ad the banana bit. And Marie, being a nothing if not clear thinking and pragmatic, thought that was as good an idea as any. So there you are. that is the story behind that.

Wow, you can do a whole lot more with Xanga than you can with Google's blogger. Marie says that I'm silly and so I will leave it at that for today