By: Beth Hardy Duff

FIRST DAY OF THE BRITISH OPEN… (okay, sooo…)  It is Thursday, late afternoon on July 18^th.  We are sitting in front of the TV watching the recap of the first day of the British Open.  The weather there looks to have been pretty good for the first round.  Exceptionally good… as opposed to our own weather in Madison which was host to the Sanderson Farms Championship.  It treated our entrants and spectators to a spectacular display of Mississippi weather in July at its finest.

EARLIER IN THE DAY…  When I finally crawled out of bed this morning and went outside to complete a long put-off chore of cleaning out the gutters on the back of the house, it was as oppressive and humid as Junior Samples’ shorts!  I got the ladder up and dug out all sorts of dirt, leaves, shingle dust and the occasional displaced skinks.  All finished, I swept off the 50 pounds (or so it appeared) of stuff I had pulled out of the gutter and sacked it up for the “garbage fairies” to haul off.  Garbage Fairies are my term for the garbage men who come to my house on Mondays & Thursdays and magically make my garbage disappear…. I LOVE them!

Shortly thereafter, it began to thunder, then it rained, then it poured.  I LOVED the fact that the deck was getting a freebie wash-job and that the gutters were operating correctly and getting a great hosing out.  As I turned my back, a bolt of lightning plunged into the ground somewhere very close and I ducked and almost ran for cover.  This continued on long after the rain ended providing a special viewing of Mississippi lightning in July in the daytime.  Those imported spectators visiting our area were now fully versed in the bizarre weather Mississippi can sport and probably headed straight to Wal-Mart to replace their now soiled undies!

So after that, I went back to the TV… I planned to watch the day’s recap of the Sanderson Farm Championship, however, there wasn’t much to show as the rain and lightning scared off everyone including the Golf Gods and forced not just a “rain delay”, but a “rain postponement til the next day”.  Better luck tomorrow, guys.

Miaow helping Paul with weather planning…

WHERE ‘YA BEEN?  You haven’t heard much from us in a long time and it’s not because we have forgotten about you or have abandoned the blog.  Frankly, we had no idea that anybody really REAALLLY paid that much attention to us….but we found out differently!  Recently, everywhere Paul and I have been, one or both of us have been politely chastised for being so delinquent in our writings.  If we didn’t run into you telling us this, we actually got emails from you!  What a boon to our egos!  You like us!  YOU REALLY DO LIKE US!!  (Move over, Sallie Field, we’re good too!)  So, we will try to do better.  We have both endured our fair (and very unfair) share of family sicknesses and woes over the past several months and that does a lot to kill the flow from the writer’s fingers.  It just doesn’t flow at all.  A couple of weeks ago, Paul mentioned that he intended to sit down & write a few things for the blog and that he sat at his computer, fingers poised and nothing….just nothing happened.  Nothing except Miaow hopping into his lap and loving on him as she has learned to do when I’m gone.  She has quickly become Paul’s cat as I am no longer her favorite.  She’s Daddy’s girl and she knows it and plays it to the hilt.  Perhaps she has forgotten who feeds her, changes her litter, bought her the $30 S-Curve upholstered cat recliner and a zillion dollars’ worth of assorted toys.  When I do come home, she twines around my ankles until I pick her up and then she bites me in a somewhat playful and somewhat Freddy Kruege-like manner.  Somehow, Ialways forgive her.

Where are ya’ll going now??

PACKING FOR OSHKOSH…  While I was at my parents’ house, tending to them, I asked Paul if he would start getting out stuff for OSH and just put it on the dining room table.  He said he’d be glad to.  In fact, it was exciting to think of packing up for our annual fun cross-country trip and would help get his mind off things too.  When I finally got home, dead on my feet, I expected to come in to a view of the tent, sleeping bags and other assorted stuff piled high in the middle of the dining room table.  Instead, I caught sight of the paperback Notam and a single sheet report from AV Lab of our oil analysis and that was all…except cat hair and dust.  I asked what happened and I never got a real precise answer other than, “I wasn’t sure where the tent and sleeping bags were”, “Uh, I never got a good start on it”, “Uh, well, I needed your help.”  For all you other married pilots out there, number three is the proper answer.  After 31 years of marriage, floundering around until you cough up, “Uh….I needed your help” or something related to this greatly aids your case immensely.  All is instantly forgiven and packing immediately gets underway.

More to come as we continue to pack this week.

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