In other news, I recently took my first trip to the Florida Keys, and I LOVE them! Sugar Plum is already talking about taking another trip down there in a few months, and I REALLY want to go back. I love the idea of just packing up everything I own and moving to a new town. There is a big problem with this idea however. Five years ago, I had the SAME idea. So I packed up all of my belongings, and moved 600 miles away from what was then home to a little town where I didn’t know a soul… well I barely knew maybe 3 souls. So anyway, I’m not they type of person who can live in a community without being involved, so it didn’t take me very long to become a “local”. And now, all of the sudden, I want to do it again! I wish that Plum had a job that would require us to relocate every few years. I get bored easily, and I would love the excitement of moving to a new place… again.

I watched Big Brother last night, and I have to say that I was glad to see Jessie go. Now on to Chima and Natalie! And what in the Hell was with that shirt?! Are you kidding me? REALLY? Needless to say, it caused me to have nightmares!

Well, it is time once again to start planning the Port St. Joe Junior Miss Program. This year I have a great co-chair, Ashley Payne, and we are looking forward to yet another great program. I think the theme this year is going to be “On Broadway” so that I can use show tunes and do the opening number to “One” from a Chorus Line! I can’t wait!!!!

Anyway, Plum wakes up today and decides that he is going to take his entire computer apart, fix it, clean it, and put it back together. Now keep in mind that I had already planned on going to Panama Shitty for sushi and a movie tonight, and this whole taking apart the computer scheme sounded like something that would take hours. Well since we like to sleep late, our daylight hours are quite limited, so if the Panama plan was going to work, we would have roughly 4 hours of day before we would have to head west. After digging around unplugging power strips, I got my first view at the inside of a Mac computer. It looked pretty intimidating to me, but Plum immediately starting explaining what every part is and how it works. Since I was much more interested in making a low-carb mushroom and Vidalia pizza, I left him with his technology. So about 2 and 1/2 hours later, he gets everything all back up and running in perfect condition, and tells me that he would rather wait and go to Panama on a different day. I should have seen it coming a mile away! We just went to Panama last week, and honestly it is too ugly to look at more than twice a month. I don’t know if you have ever been to Panama City, Florida, but I’m going to guess you haven’t. You may be one of the thousands who have been to a Panama City Beach spring break, but Panama City proper is across the bridge to the east. It has to be one of the most poorly designed municipalities in all of America. An average Panama Shitty street is best described as follows:

Lot 1 – Bubba’s Dilapidated Auto Body Shop – there are 17 rusted out old broken down 1970’s model cars scattered throughout the 2 acre plot with an old 700 square foot concrete block “office” and 3 rusted metal garages filled with greasy equipment. Lot 2 (next door) – Residential Dwelling – 2500 square foot 3 year-old brick home with nice landscaping, an attached 2 car garage, big front porch and a wood fence around the rear portion of the lot. Lot 3 – Sounds of Freedom First Agape New Mt. Zion Revolutionary Nondenominational Church – Nice large stucco church with a few large metal buildings attached (for extra Sunday school space), and a large well landscaped parking lot. Lot 4 – Booger and Tina’s Trailer of Dreams – A rusted 1968 model single wide manufactured home with dead bushes littering the yard of dirt, and 5 large dogs on chains in the front yard. There is no driveway, but there are 2 old dirty muscle cars parked randomly in front of the dwelling along with 2 old pick-up trucks, 1 new burgundy and gold supped up pick-up truck with a “Go Noles” bumper sticker on the rear window, and 1 small aluminum boat on a rusted boat trailer. Lot 5 – Starbucks Coffee. Lot 6 – Paper Mill. So as you can see, there is no zoning, and thus no separation of residential, commercial, industrial and special use properties, and really no separation of neighborhoods. The whole place looks like one big dump with an unimaginable amount of TRAFFIC! There are cars EVERYWHERE! You may have noticed that the word “rusted” showed up many times during my lengthy description. Salt air has a way of making things rust at a swift pace, so unless you rinse everything down with fresh water on a regular basis, anything left in the salt air will rust quickly. I always say, “They should just tear the whole place down and start from scratch.”  So… at the end of the day I am sitting at my computer wondering what I am going to do with the rest of my Friday afternoon, and more importantly, what am I going to do with my Friday night? I thought about going out in front of my house to look for scallops… but I’m not in the mood to get all salty and sandy this late in the day. Plum just informed me that we are going to go out in the boat tomorrow on another big scallop hunt, so I guess I can wait until then to deal with the salt water.  I know there is live music at the Goat tonight, so Madame Mayor may have to make an appearance!

Click on the thumbnail below to view Booger & Tina’s bathroom!

In other news, I have been having terrible nightmares recently. I think it may have something to do with my watching way too much FOX News. Last night I had a dream about brightly colored snakes. They attacked me one at a time, and I kept running to try to avoid them. After sustaining several bites, I made it to the phone to call 911. The 911 operator informed me that the new Obama socialized healthcare program was forced to cut back on emergency services, and that they would try to send an ambulance within 4-6 hours. It was pretty bad!

So it is hurricane season, but I have yet to see the first tropical depression in my area. I know this will sound insensitive and immature, but I live in Florida, and hurricanes don’t scare me! My house has been flooded 3 times (that we know of), and I feel pretty good about the concrete block stucco until a storm reaches Cat 4 or Cat 5 status. Sugar Plum on the other hand insists on going down with the ship. He likes to say, “I have a scuba tank and surf board. I’m not leaving!” I know, these are the people that have to be airlifted off of their roofs for being idiots, but I think I could make him change his mind if push came to shove.

I had a fabulous time at the Haughty Heron last evening. There was a big crowd and plenty to discuss, so a good time was had by all! I had a interesting discussion with Coach McDonald about the local academic atmosphere, and he assured me that the Port St. Joe School is a fine learning institution. I still worry about sending a child to a school that focuses primarily on athletics and passing one standardized test per year, but I guess we’ll just have to home school after school. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it!

I am staying at home tonight to watch Big Brother, but I think that Plum and I may drive over to Panama Shitty for date night tomorrow night to eat sushi and watch Ice Age 3 in 3-D. Have fun!