a wager.

We're frighteningly fond of the 70s XM radio station. Aside from rebroadcasts of vintage Casey Kasem AT40 shows from the 70s (what's not to love?), we've started listening to "70s on 7" with alarming frequency.

For me, this music is totally nostalgic, reminding me especially of rides in Mom's Olds Cutlass Convertible, particularly up Keystone Avenue from Grandma's to home, or from the Brookshire pool. It's a total time warp for me. Rob, however, missed that whole era of music, since that sort of music wasn't deemed particularly appropriate listening in his church-going household.

So tonight, a bottle and some change into the evening, ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down" comes on. I've always been convinced that the chorus goes, "Don't bring me down, Bruce." Rob was convinced that it was "Don't bring me down, Groos." Whatever.

We bet $20.

I lost.

Turns out, this is a prime example of my new favorite word, mondegreen. A mondegreen is a commonly misheard word or phrase. Like in "Blinded By the Light." You know what I'm talking about.

Crap. Now I owe Rob twenty bucks. And I'll never hear the end of it.

Oh, and by the way, these are like crack:

recharging.

I came back from a super-dee-awesome HOW Conference with an empty gas tank, both mentally and physically. Which made conditions ripe for a cold to develop. Which it did.

I paid a quick visit to Carmel on my day off Friday for lunch with Grandma and Mom. It was great seeing both of them, and Mom's lunch was, natch, perfect.

We've made the most of this Memorial Day weekend, in spite of low energy and a scruffy throat on my part. Rob washed windows on Saturday (which no doubt foretold today's bit of rain). I sort of helped, but not really. But we put the screens in the front and side doors, and now the house is wide open to the warm humidity, which feels terrific. I hung in there for 9 holes today and put up a rather decent (for me) score of 41. We've made two morning trips to the Coffee Emporium, during both of which Wrigley scored dog biscuits. So it's all good.

We've been creative in the kitchen: Saturday, we did barbeque chicken and lime/thyme potato salad (my absolute fave), then finished with a slice of homemade pound cake topped with fresh local strawberries that'd spent some quality time in a bath of Cointreau. Last night, we marinated some scallops from Findlay Market in some fresh herbs, garlic and olive oil, then broiled them topped with buttered breadcrumbs. I reduced some orange juice, added chopped tomato and swirled in a bit of butter for a nice sauce. Yum. Tonight it's steak sandwiches and fresh asparagus.

who knew?

Turns out, Grandma has a Wikipedia entry

pick your dinner.

First salad picked from the garden, last weekend when Mom was here.

spring.

Cool, rainy weather this spring has lengthened the season; things bloomed in succession, like a parade of flowering trees and shrubs over the past several weeks. Here's from our yard:

can't wait for this.

Wow. I really need to get off my @ss and post all the photos of our spring-glorious yard that I took specifically to share here.

In the meantime, I totally can't wait for this show on PBS coming this fall: