Diddakoi Walt Whitman
Take me home...St Emilion  kay@diddakoi.com

Updated: 12/02/06



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Saturday, 02 December, 2006

Alas, the USC Trojans LOST to UCLA tonight. When they didn't go for a field goal on the first play of the 4th quarter, I shook my head. When they threw up the interception with 1:15 left in the game, I tried to go to my "happy place".

I remember that my folks had a cartoon pinned to the bulletin board near the phone in the den when I was growing up. It showed a football coach standing on the sidelines with a couple of huge, hulking football players standing beside him. He says to them:

"Oh, look, look. The bad men have taken the ball away from our little friends. Naughty, naughty men, Oh, oh. Who can go out there and get our ball back?"

Unfortunately, either that conversation didn't happen on the USC sideline, or they just weren't able to help their little friends.

[Sorry Ron, Pam, Jim, Mark, Mary. Oh, and Newman.]

We drove down to the shore last night after work. It has been incredibly warm in Philly this week - I think it got up to 73 degrees yesterday! But a storm front was coming through and it was very, very windy. As we came across the Margate Bridge, we saw that all the lights on the lower half of the island were out. It was quite creepy as we drove down the dark streets, with the wind swirling around us.

There were no lights at all in our condo complex when we drove up, and no one at the desk. There were police cars patrolling the streets, so we didn't worry about someone breaking in, but it was odd that there was no one at the front desk. We decided to drive towards Atlantic City and try to find somewhere to have dinner, and then check back.

We drove up towards Margate and found that they had electricity, so we went to Ventura's for dinner. I tend to think of it as a beach bar hangout, but they also have an upscale dining room upstairs. We had a nice dinner and although the lights were still out to our south when we finished, we drove back to the condo to see if there was anyone there.

Just after we arrived, two other cars pulled up. Gary got out and spoke with them for a while and then came back and said that Clark, the night watchman, had just gotten there. He did not had a key to the generator, so had to leave and get a copy. He would let us up the back stairs, along with a few others who had also come back, and would then get the generator running.

As it turned out, all seven people climbing up the stairs had to go to the sixth floor, including our next door neighbors. When we got to the fifth floor landing, there were no more emergency lights, and we all groped part of the way down the sixth floor hallway (PITCH BLACK) until Gary said, "This is stupid."

And pulled out his cell phone, opened it up and used it as a flashlight.

[Duh.]

So I got out mine and we all made much better time down the hall. Heh. We got inside and had just put our bags down and started to stumble around and find candles when . . . the lights went back on! Stressful as it was, everything worked out for the best and we've had a nice, albeit much cooler day down here.

[Complete with electricity!]

SAVE YOUR CORKS!!

[Only 5,064 more needed for our Wine Cellar Wall. Thanks to the Haganders South, for their Thanksgiving contribution of 47 corks!]

Quote du jour:

"If it weren't for electricity, we'd all be watching television by candlelight.”

George Gobel (1919 - 1991) US comedian

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