Aunt Muriel is in the hospital. She was having some vision problems and vertigo yesterday, so Cousin Ron took her to the hospital so they could check her out and see what's going on. Mom said her vitals were good, so hopefully this is something minor and she'll be home quickly.

[Hope you're feeling better, Aunt Mur!]

The annual Army-Navy football game was held this weekend here at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. As it happened, we were heading out into the burbs Saturday morning when we saw a convoy of buses with police escort heading up I-95 from the south.

On the way back into town in the afternoon, we passed by the airport - it was very quiet, with no planes taking off or in final approach. Rather odd for a Saturday afternoon. I-95 goes right past the football stadium, and as we approached, I looked at the time and said, "The game should be beginning right now." The stadium is open, so one can see into the stands, which were (not surprisingly) full. We also saw several people standing at the outside ramps looking toward the freeway, which we thought was rather odd.

Until I looked out my window and saw four Navy F-14s coming right at us.

You know, those things are LOUD. Just after I saw them, they flew right over our heads and the stadium, and one of them hit his afterburners. Yikes. They headed north past the city - I looked to the south again and saw a formation of seven Army Apache helicopters on their way. I couldn't get the camera out in time for the F-14s, but the Apaches did their flyby and then paralleled I-95 for a while:

Apparently they weren't the only ones to do a flyover of The Linc yesterday: The President flew into Philly for the game and Air Force One did a flyover with a wing tip to the crowd two hours before the game started. Pretty cool.

[Sounds like air traffic control had their hands full.]

You gotta love IKEA. A vast world of inexpensive fiberboard furniture and nothing-fancy housewares sandwiched between a 99-cent breakfast on the inbound and cinnamon buns at the exit. Even though their stuff isn't for everyone, and doesn't have the same quality and heft of Ethan Allen or Dane Decor, it's great for certain things, and I have found that the stuff really lasts.

We needed to get a desk for the study. We looked at Dane Decor - apparently the love of Danish Modern must be genetic, or else I just grew into it in my childhood - and they had some lovely desks. For about $2,500 - ouch. So we went to IKEA and found a nice birch-veneer desk, with a matching three drawer rolling cabinet. For $230.

We found it last week, but didn't have room to take it home, so decided to go back this weekend. I went on line to check their hours and found a couple of interesting things. This was on the home page:

Come on down! The game is on in our room settings every Sunday! E-A-G-L-E-S - EAGLES!!!!

So the family can go down to IKEA, do a little shopping and not miss a minute of the game. Very smart.

[The Eagles dismantled the Packers yesterday, but that's another story.]

I also noticed that IKEA had a CPU (computer) trolley that matched the desk we had decided to get. One can check the in-stock availability by store for items, so I checked and they said it was available at the Philly store. Great!

We arrived a couple of minutes before they opened, and headed to the desk department to write down the self pick-up information. Looked around, but there was no CPU trolley to be found. We asked one of the sales reps about it and she said that everything they have in stock should be on the floor.

My experience with most stores is that when clerk tells you that, the conversation is over. If you don't see it, we don't have it, and it doesn't matter what the website said. The IKEA clerk's reaction was, "Let's go check the website." We found the item and she pulled it up on her inventroy list - sure enough, they had 17 of the little guys. She wrote down the name of the piece and its location for us and thanked us for letting her know that they had another piece so that she could get one and put it on display.

[Nicely done.]

Santa Mom is at it again. I was doing some shopping on line and decided to put a couple of classic Christmas movies on my Amazon wish list, figuring that I could pick them up after the holidays. Well what to my wondering eyes should appear in the mail? "Miracle on 34th Street." That's the 1947 version, mind you. Black and white, not colorized. Definitely not the 1994 remake. The classic with Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara and Natalie Wood. I look forward to watching it, since it isn't The Season without it.

Speaking of classic Christmas movies, TNT is again running their marathon showing of "A Christmas Story" - 24 hours of Red Ryder BB guns, triple-dog dares, and fishnet stockings. They have scheduled it to begin Christmas Eve at 8:00 p.m., so I'm hoping that the hospital will have hooked up the cable TV in the on-call apartment so we can watch.

[Much to Gary's joy, I'm sure.]

Quote du jour:

"I believe... I believe...It's silly, but I believe."

-- Susan Walker
Miracle on 34th Street