Pre Hannah

Here we go again. This one has me a bit more concerned than Fay and I’m expecting it to be more of a wind event. The path seems to be unstable so really not sure how much advance work to do.

Joey’s 5th treatment is today and we’re a bit apprehensive about this one because it’s only 12 days since the last one. We’ll see. The worst of it for him will probably be just about the time Hannah is making it’s presence felt along the east coast and I doubt he’ll feel much like battening down the hatches. He’s handling this remarkably well and I think I know why. He doesn’t have time to be sick. Aside from a fair amount of cruise business, he has a couple of consuming projects going. For example, he realized that in older half dollar coins, the intrinsic silver value is more than the face value of the coin. Once he found that out he started haunting banks for bags of half dollars – and gathers them at $7000 per trip to the bank. He then goes thru the 15000 coins and sorts out the “good” ones. He’s had some success and it’s certainly kept him occupied. Or maybe it’s the handwriting projects. A year or so back he got interested in old fashion, Ben Franklin like, handwriting. He attended a seminar and classes in Ohio and spends quite a bit of time practicing and perfecting his craft. So he offered his services to the Cocoa Historical Society on a gratis basis. Now he’s on the trail of old, antique Singer sewing machines called Featherweights. Nancy has had one for a couple of years and believe it or not, these 50+ year old machines are the machines of choice for quilters because of their size, portability, and the fact that the stitches are so true and consistent. Last week he spotted one at a flea market and called to ask if he should buy it and what it was worth. He took a chance and got it for Nancy even though he couldn’t ascertain that it worked. They drove right here from the flea market and sure enough, it worked like a champ. I cleaned and oiled it and it performs perfectly. See what I mean – no time for sick sick.

My time for the past couple of weeks has been consumed trying to recover the garden. That’s code for moving wheel barrow after wheel barrow of fill dirt to the garden to try to raise it up a foot or so. One thing I learned is that the storm totally aroused the fire ants and mosquitoes. I was working in one area of the garden and dug into a fire ant mound that must have been the NYC of fire ant habitats. About 10′ away I hit London. These were masses of ants that literally resembled living orbs of jelly. I managed to get away from both of these with just a few bites but if I had not been alert, I think they could have consumed me in a few seconds. And the mosquitoes remind me of the masses we had back in the 50’s. That’s where you fear breathing because you’ll suck in a mouthful. And these are different than the normal ones we get. These are huge and can hold about a gallon of blood. On a one by one basis, they’re easier to deal with than the smaller, faster ones but in a swarm, they black out the light. Maybe a good wind event is what we need to send these bad boys over to Tampa.

Politics – Sarah Palin. I was very soft on McCain and have always thought he was a Democrat throw back to the 50’s. I would vote for Palin in a heart beat. My kind of Republican. Hunts, fishes, eats moose – what more could you want? In favor of drilling and making the oil companies pay big for the privilege – not just talk but a track record on doing just that. Kicking corrupt politicians out of the system – not just talk, but a track record. I love it that she’s not a lawyer and not a blather, blather, blather legislator. Love that she’s a Journalist by trade, has run her own business and has several years of Executive level decision making. The bottom of the Republican ticket has more experience than the top of the other guys.. The thing this choice is going to do is bring more Republicans to the ballot box. McCain is big with Independents – those are people who really don’t know what they are; she’ll nail the Republican base where he’s shaky. No doubt she’ll pick up some disgruntled Clinton supporters who, let’s face it, were shafted. How you can end up with Biden – the presidential candidate who got the fewest number of primary votes – on the ticket instead of Clinton who won all the big states, is beyond comprehension. The Democrat voters said clearly “we don’t want this guy for president”. Hillary basically ran the table in the primaries after a bad start. Has to be personal because it sure defies common sense. So I guess the only thing we have to suffer through is the press beating up on her teen age daughter. I think they forget how many of us had teenage kids and know just how unpredictable that can be. And beating up on her is going to offend quite a few young ladies I’m sure.

I just love having a real person on the ticket.