In honor of the last day of March, it’s time for a little poetry. This seems to scan if sung to The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”

o franken factor on the internet !pleh !pleh,
airborne adventure wales, tarkett tap tight, porque?
westminster abbey photo newton s tomb, it snew

harris-tarkett tap tight, o franken
harris-tarkett tap tight, o franken
harris-tarkett tap tight, o franken
harris-tarkett tap tight, o franken

And so on. Lame, but weird enough to sing along if you’ve had enough beers. So drink up, the week’s half done.

With limited ability to stay current with some of the blogs I read, I had to content myself with scanning headlines in Bloglines a time or two. But not all of the blogs I read have RSS feeds, and my connection was so slow using dialup at Mom’s house on the laptop that I just had to bide my time and wonder what people were doing.

For example, Ben Saunders is still on the ice.

A couple of new entries at “Learning Moveable Type” – thanks, Elise!

Clack is gloating over AOL’s new anti-spam tactic – raffle off the spammer’s swag! Hee, &etc., good one! Funny, when I was a volunteer on the “MailTeam” at AOL about 7 years ago, they didn’t give a damn about spam (and couldn’t tell me just what part of the headers the “mail controls” targeted for blocking unwanted email). Now AOL really gives a damn. I guess one beeeeelion junk emails per year (and growing) really messes with your systems and makes you want to actually do something about the problem, AOL… after ignoring member complaints back when you could have REALLY done something about spam.

There’s a lot of backblog to wade through – but now, sleep in my very own bed. With my very own hubby.

Alistair Cooke’s death was sad news for us this morning; we were lucky enough to hear quite a few installments of his excellent BBC NEWS | Programmes | Letter From America radio series, owing to the fact that our local :NPR affiliate, WBEZ, broadcasts BBC World Services on Saturday mornings.

I’ll miss that warm, erudite voice very much.

Dammit.

So we’re home again. It’s been a hella fine weekend, but it’s nice to be back in our own house, and a few hours from now, we’ll sleep in our own bed. The thought fills me with contentment. Of course, the fact that I don’t have to go to work until Monday is probably part of this feeling.

After learning the harsh lesson of our outbound trip, we made tracks to the airport early and had no problems at all. It truly was “Easy Check-In.” Won’t check in less than 90 minutes prior to departure again, ever. Nope.

Joy of joys, a lady with a noisy fussy baby sat next to me, but fortunately (eep) she breast-fed it under a blanket most of the first hour (eeeeesh!) and it was quiet except for when it kicked me (eeeee-yaaaaargh). However, David had bought earplugs, so those helped me just tune everything out (aaaaaah).

The rest of the time post-party was a dizzying whirl of going to dinner with family (Raeanne and her funny progeny, Collin and Paige) or driving around in the mountains taking pictures before going to dinner with more family (Tudy hosted a leftovers party at her place last night). Also, we bought Mom a cordless phone and showed her how to use it – now she can trot around in the yard gardening and not have to drop trowel (heh) and rush into the house to answer the phone.
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The party last night… what a good time was had by all! It turned out that most of my cousins (of mine and the next younger generation) were there in addition to a bunch of my niece Sydnee’s friends and in-laws. The food was fabulous – Syd’s husband Eric is fond of Indian food so there were a lot of interesting items to choose from.

The house was amazing – stuck up on the mountainside with a creek roaring down a little gully alongside, with several decks and great views of the valley through tall pine trees (kind of a rarity in that part of the valley, they must have been planted in the 60’s to be so big). It was great hanging out with so many family members; the memories were coming thick and fast in my head, since in my childhood (especially before my dad and my mom’s brother Charlie died) there were a lot more times we got together, and all the cousins and I were kids, so we’d play together while the adults partied. This party was decidedly upscale and “done right,” and there were snacks and beverages available in every major room and on the decks, too. It was a cold night with occasional rain or hail coming down so we couldn’t spend much time outside, but for a while it was very nice to stand on the covered deck on the lower level, drink a beer, and watch the hail “ping!” off of an abstract metal hanging sculpture. It was a nice place to hang out and escape all the crowds.
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