My mom is now the proud owner of a brand new Rav4. She's practically giddy about the car: "It's my size" she says, with lots of little hiddie holes in the back so all of her "just in case" gear is stowed out of the way, she has plenty of space to haul her plants/dirt, and she got the "Sports Package" upgrade with a 4 disk cd changer. In short, it's a sweet ride.

When we were at the dealership, the young, twenty-something chickie going through the manual and keys kept looking at me as she talked. In the back of my mind I thought, "She thinks this is my car." Sure enough, when I got up to show another employee which license tag to switch, the chickie remarked to my mom, "This is YOUR car? But this is a young person's car!"

Strangely my mom let her walk away with her eyes and limbs in tact. I take that as a sign that she was in a good mood.

---

Lessons Learned This Weekend at the DMV:

1. Never show up at the DMV at 3 pm. You'll still be standing in line with at least thirty of your closest friends at 5:00 when DMV folks lock the doors. At least they didn't make us all leave.
2. If you're going to change car titles, make sure to call your insurer BEFORE you get in line at the DMV. Otherwise the DMV Dudette may refuse to give you your title until you have proof of insurance and you'll end up on your cell phone trying to holler over thirty of your closest friends to change your policy.
3. Never go to the DMV when you're sick. 'Nuff said.
4. Never take a child who just got his shots for school to the DMV. He may end up kicking, hitting and screaming at the sick librarian who is about two seconds from losing it. And yes I know, it wasn't his fault because he felt bad. Join the club, little dude, and don't thwack me with that huge stuffed rabbit again.

---

Saturday was rainy so we spent a lot of on my mom's porch. She had the screened porch built a couple of years ago, although it had been in my dad's original plan for the house from before it was built. When she decided to make the cats indoor-only pets, she started leaving them out there a lot, many times unsupervised, until G-Cat started chewing his way through parts of the screen in order to pull a Houdini. The funny thing was that when she found him afterwards he never ran away from her, in fact he'd come strolling up to her as pleased as punch. It was like, "Look what I did, Mama!"

Anyway, she decided to make the porch more of a sun room as a result - had someone glass in the lower portion that the cats could reach and install a series of polymer panels up top that could be raised (for a sun room effect) or lowered (for a screen porch one). It looks really nice and sitting out there on my mom's white wicker furniture was wonderful: surrounded by the various greens of the woods, the ceiling fan causing the wind chimes to sing, and rain in the gutters sounding like drops on a tin roof.

Then my mom called me today...

MCL: "Tell your mother she's an idiot."
Me: *Short pause as various remarks go through my head, before I opt for the safe response* "You're an idiot, mom. Now why are you an idiot?"

Seems she had gone out to do some errands and, since it was such a nice day and the G-Cat was being so good, she left him out there by himself with the panels all pulled down.

You see where this is going, right?

Sure enough, she got back and there he was, trotting up to meet her. Houdini, the Master of Illusion escapes again....this time he climbed in between he polymer panels and the screen to chew his way out. *Ffppptt* Stupid cat.

---

And on TV...

Are you ready for some football? I am. I cannot tell you how happy I was to watch my Panthers play their preseason game this past Saturday. It's a sure sign that Fall is not far behind. (And my main man Julius Peppers even got a sack. Pure bliss.)

What are you watching tonight? Me, I'm looking forward to the new episode of Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel. It starts at 10 pm so sorry folks, I gotta go. Oh, but I am feeling better - today is the last day of my antibiotics and I am tentatively optimistic. I do have to say that after talking with various medical folks (my pharmacist, my doctor's partner, etc.), the best advice I got was from Future Dr. Cara. After I upped my yogurt intake everything got much better. Thanks Soon-To-Be-Dr.-Cara!