Weird weather and stuff
2006-05-16 - 5:35 p.m.

So tonight is AI night. I'm so nervous for them I can hardly stand it! Gah! I hope Elliot doesn't crack under the pressue.

My dad called this morning to say hi and we talked a little bit about AI. I was telling Dad about the controversy over Chris's exit from the show last week (some folks from the McLeansville area are saying they heard Cat's voice when they tried to vote for Chris) and I asked him if he'd ever called in to vote for anyone and gotten to hear their recorded messages. Dad said he's never voted because he thought you had to pay for it. I swear, he is the world's biggest tightwad. I explained that phone calls are free and you only have to pay for text messaging, so he said he'd probably do some voting tonight.

He really makes me laugh sometimes. Several years ago I explained to him that the skin problem we both have on our faces is called dermatitis (he thought it was eczema) and he said, "What? Germatitis?" And last year when he found out we were going to Cape Hatteras he suggested we take the ferry to "Ocachoke" island (that's supposed to be Ocracoke). I guess I ought to cut him some slack; the man is 62 years old after all.

He's really enjoying his retirement. He's been looking forward to retiring since about as long as I can remember and now he can play golf or take naps or go gambling any time he wants.

We had some crazy weather over the weekend. On Saturday afternoon it hailed penny and gumball-sized pieces and some of them even ripped right through part of my plastic lawn chair on the deck. According to people who've lived around here for a long time, they rarely see hail like that. I grabbed the video camera to get some filmage of it, but the battery went dead after about 2 seconds. I think I did manage to get a bit of it on tape, though. The deck was covered with hailstones at that point and it was so loud. A few minutes later the rain and hail stopped and the sun came out, and steam was coming off everything. Steam was just rolling off the roof and down onto the deck. It looked almost like smoke.

Uh...I'm trying to remember if there was anything else I wanted to write about. I'm sure I'll think of something as soon as I hit that "done!" button. Oh well.

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