In which it shouldn't be this cold outside and we dream of Venice....

 "Forty degrees? Are you kidding me?" Alas, despite my best hopes, there was nothing wrong with the thermometer. It's just cold outside tonight.











"Did I tell you it snowed on my birthday once, when I was little?" Pinky said. "It actually stuck for awhile, too. At least on the grass."


"When is your birthday again?" Shel seemed almost afraid to ask.

"This Friday," she said.

"Great..." I don't think that was the answer he wanted.

"Is this where all those beads you got came from?" John-John, meanwhile, was looking at a book.

"That's it," Maddy said. She went to a bead show this weekend and bought a bunch of Venetian glass beads from one of her favorite sellers. She said they usually hold it at a nearby hotel, but this time it was in the rec center on the other side of town.

"Wasn't that where they saw the moose a couple of years ago?" Shel said.


"I don't know if they saw it or thought they saw it," Maddy said. "A friend of mine said that the police were all over her yard and a couple of the neighbors' yards looking for it, though."

"Did anyone think to check on Camilla Parker-Bowles' whereabouts at the time?" John-John said. (He's strictly Team Diana, even after all these years...)

"John-John, that wasn't very nice," Pinky scolded.

"You're right. I shouldn't say things like that about a moose." He looked contrite - sort of.

We tried to get some pictures of the beads, but they didn't come out so well....













Not much better. Maddy said the blue bead came from another show - the one the day before Hurricane Irene. She said she bought a LOT of stuff that day, anticipating that she might not be able to attend the next day. She was right - the show was cancelled within five minutes of opening after the hotel started to flood out thanks to a nearby stream overflowing its banks. Nobody was hurt, but it apparently caused enough damage to that particular hotel's bottom floor that it hasn't reopened since. (The bottom floor, not the hotel...)




And no, John-John and Shel haven't set a date yet. I think John-John said his mom is coming over from England soon. If I remember correctly, she's originally from California, but moved to England after she married his dad, who passed away about five and a half years ago. I think poor John-John really wishes he was here...