A few assorted updates

With Michelle and Stella visiting Wolverine Lake I've been doing more "having fun" than blogging, but I reckoned I'd send along a quick update for those who worried the recent lack of updates means that the flock of trumpeter swans ate us.

There are lots and lots of photos, but I haven't yet downloaded or organized them, and won't do so this morning. So you'll just have to read this stuff the old-fashioned way.

Cold update:
I'm much recovered from the cold that had me down earlier this week. Stupid cold. And I'm glad to report that it doesn't seem I've passed it along to anybody. Stupid cold.

Trumpeter swan update:
The trumpeter swan flock is still hanging around the lake, though they've moved on to other arms. Last night we could hear them trumpeting up a storm in the dark.

Thursday:
Arsen, Brigitte, Baldy, Peggy, Susie, Michelle, and Stella all came over for dinner Thursday night. Monique cooked up a delicious pan of baked pasta. Baldy, Peggy, and Susie had been visiting A&B this week, but alas, they all headed back South Friday. We had thought they were staying through Saturday, so this was the only chance I got to see them. Stella stuck around and stayed here afterwards.

Friday:
Michelle came over and we all (Monique, Michelle, Stella, and me) had nachos for dinner and a lovely conversation in which Monique, Michelle, and I patronizingly tsk-tsked -- at length -- the violence in modern movies. Then after sufficiently scolding contemporary Hollywood we decided to step back in time and watch a classic from back when movies were just good, clean fun. We went way back in time and picked Total Recall (1990). It was a great choice, especially the cool part where the dude's head exploded and the brains got all over everybody on the escalator.

In Blu-Ray HDTV.

On the big plasma TV.

Gosh, it's a shame we didn't dig up a director's cut that restored the minute-and-a-half of assorted blood and guts that was originally trimmed from the movie to get it down from an X rating when it was first released.

Irony, thy name is Friday night's movie choice.

Saturday:
There was a bit of lovely lazing about the house in the morning. Then Monique, Michelle, Stella, and I were off to the Pet Exposition down at the Novi convention center with our neighbor Wendy and her daughter Lexi. Photos aplenty to follow, so I shan't go into detail here. We had an excellent time.

Afterwards, we stopped at the Sunshine Herb Farm and picked up a clump of dried hops for future brewing. Unfortunately, the woman who runs the Sunshine Herb Farm is ready to retire, so she's put it up for sale. This is the place where we pick up all of our heirloom tomatoes, pepper plants, and herbs when we plant our garden every spring, so we're watching the sale with great interest. Anybody want to buy an herb farm? (They also raise Morgan horses.)

When we got home, it was beer-bottling time at the Old Sloshingforth Brewery. We bottled ten gallons of beer: five gallons of the very promising Pumpkin Holiday Ale, and five gallons of a little brew I'm calling Old Slosh. I think the Holiday Ale is going to turn our really, really well. I think the Old Slosh will contain some level of alcohol. With any luck it will probably not cause blindness.

After the bottling, we settled down to watch a good, old fashioned non-violent movie, His Girl Friday (1940) with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. It featured theft, attempted insurance fraud, public graft, hanging, a prison escape, counterfeiting, bribery, lots of shooting, machine guns, kidnapping, an attempted suicide, and at least a dozen instances of "obstruction of justice." Good clean fun.

Monique, Michelle, and Stella don't know about any of that, though, since they all fell asleep while the film had only advanced to a little racketeering. Apparently the violence level was just too tame for their tastes. Perhaps we'll try The Wild Bunch (1969) tonight.

Sunday morning:
Speaking of meaningless violence, the four of us are just about to head off to watch today's Stupor Bowl: the Hapless Browns (1-8) come to Detroit today to take on the Feeble Lions (1-8). (City names have been changed to protect innocent bystanders in those two cities.) On the bright side, this is a game that the Lions may have a chance to win.

Goooooo, Lions!!