Normalcy

Miracle upon miracles, we seem to have fallen into our usual routine.  No vomiting, no runny noses, no sinus infections.  Melanie is now officially potty trained ... life is GOOD!  Who in the heck would have guessed that I'd be potty training a baby at the ripe old age of 45??  But man am I glad that's over.  She's a smart girl .. didn't take much.  Most people use stickers; I use threats & intimidation.  Just KIDding.  I just showed her what to do and she did it.

Poor Panthers ... it's a shame they didn't show up for their playoff game.  What the #$%^>?  Must have been the jet lag.  Living in Charlotte has made me somewhat of a fan, having never really lived in a city with an NFL team before.  (Okay, I did date a guy once who was a place kicker for the USFL, but that doesn't count).  And Jake Delhomme is from Louisiana, my home state, so I feel a little connection.  We're some of the few people up here in NC who can understand him when he is interviewed on TV.  That Cajun accent.  The guy across the street from us has a double-life-size blow-up Carolina Panther, crouched in line-of-scrimmage form.  It went up every Sunday there was a game, but lay in a deflated puddle during the week.  I suppose he'll go into cold storage now.  David took me to a Panthers game one time, tickets donated by a business acquaintance.  We got to sit up near the  boxes, in the "frou-frou" section, where you could escape into the air conditioning if it got too hot.  Which I did, several times, but nevertheless came away with a blistering sunburn.  I mean, I like football, I guess, but sometimes I just don't get it ... all the games look and sound alike, only with different colored uniforms.  Of course it does help nowadays when the TV stations superimpose a fake line to show how far they have to go to get a first down, but I sure don't understand what the heck "holding" is, much less "offsides".  What's a girl to do?  Give me baseball any day, (although I'm not clear on what the designated hitter rule is all about.  Are sports just something we women are genetically not built to understand?)

Of course I was impressed when David came home one time from a hunting trip (business related, of course) and announced that he had been with Peyton Manning all weekend.  Peyton's dad, Archie, was a New Orleans Saint back when David was growing up in N.O. ... so it was like hunting with one of his childhood heroes. 

Quentin is on a Stanley Kubrick kick.  He is obsessed with movies of all type, and has compiled his own list of 100 movies he wants to see.  David and I went through and axed 75% of them, but we did watch The Shining.  Then I got interested in reading the book, and now I can't put it down.  The movie is pretty cheesy by today's standards, and pretty much glosses over all the character development in the book.  I've never been a Stephen King fan, but I may be one soon.