I think I dodged a big one yesterday....

....although I did notice the finish on my cell phone is looking a bit tired. I went off with Joanne and Twila looking at real estate in the afternoon and a couple of the homes did not have their A/C on. Joanne did turn it on, but in the meantime, we got hot, especially when climbing up and down stairs in the units. One place, about 2600 square feet, had more nooks and crannies, amazing closets and tuck-aways, than you could believe. Even a potting closet off the atrium for taking care of the greenery. Such great fun that house would be to decorate!!!! Twila and I got into a wrestling match over it, that is how charming it was! The community where we were looking is near the hospital in Orange Park and has a man-made lake around which all the town homes were built. The icing on the cake was the black swans swimming about in the water, plus a million ducks. It was like paradise! While the three of us agreed that no, it was not the ocean, the river or Doctors Lake, it was a great substitute!

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Well, after I left the ladies and headed to McDonald's to stock up on cheap hamburgers, always 59 cents on Wednesdays!, I could hear a little chirping sound. It was not a "normal" sound like when the cell phone battery is dying, it was more pathetic a cheep and quite irregular. I did determine it was coming from the phone, which was, ahem, soaking wet. As I drove, I held it to the A/C vent in the car to give it some air, dry out, but it continued making the pathetic chirping.

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When I got home and upstairs again, I examined the phone more closely, realizing that the TALK button and the left side row of keys were inoperable as well. I sent Justin a message, more cryptic than a normal text message due to inoperative keys. He happened to be in the office and sent me back an IM, asking me what was the matter with my phone. He was more than ready to go shopping with me today to buy a new one, but fortunately for me, my phone came back to life! I plugged it in and it dried out, I guess, and seems to be doing fine. My choir friends took great delight in hearing my sad story and offered alternative suggestions for the toting thereof in the future. Brian suggested a ZipLock baggie and I told him I had that same idea! So did Lisa! Twila's granddaughter, also Twila, wears her phone around her neck on a lanyard and that might be the way to go for me, too. Lori can probably make a lovely lanyard for me, one to match every outfit, a whole new 'line' for her!

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Speaking of Lori, I was thinking about her when I went to bed last night. Late night TV is often too dry for me these days since I am not getting my 24/7 doses of "Law and Order" like I was accustomed to having. New shows replacing my old stand-by. I found "Rosanne" on one of the "old" TV stations and it happened to be an episode special to Lori, my sis, and me. The Conners, whose quips had me sitting up and laughing instead of falling to sleep, had a vacuum cleaner salesman die at their kitchen table. "People don't usually die until after they have left my kitchen...." Priceless!!! When Rosanne was cajoling Dan into the checking the dead man's pockets for his ID, he said, as he began the search, "I hate you and everything you stand for!" , at which point I sat right up in bed and roared with laughter. You had to be there! After the coroner finally showed up and declared the man as being dead ("I called that one three hours ago, mister!"), Rosanne put her hand on the gurney and pulled the sheet back to say, "I'm not sure where you're going, but say "hi" to Janis Joplin from me, okay?". That made my phone ring all those many years ago when my sisters called to find out if I heard that or not. I was tempted but resisted calling Lori, due to the hour, but man, I was wishing she was here to watch it with me! Laughing myself to sleep.....what a way to go!

Here are Lori and David at an outdoor market where she hawks her handmade jewelry while David, the troubadour, entertains the passersby. Most of my jewels come from Lori, who stays up half the night designing and creating in her hovel.