Recently in Old Movable Type Category
I haven't felt much like posting lately, but anybody still watching deserves an update, so...
Mom & Dad came up to St. Louis for a nice Christmas visit. They had pretty much decided that Paducah, KY was where they wanted to move, now that they've salvaged everything they can from the Mississippi coast, so they stopped there on their way back down to Mississippi to have a look around. They ended up finding a house they really liked, and put in a down payment on New Year's Eve. They're currently planning to close on January 25, and move in the first of February. I'll be going down to help them move in, and I think they'll finally be able to start moving on with life.
Not much else going on on my side. I may be revamping this website in the next few weeks, and try to start updating more regularly again.
I think that yesterday, they got some good news about demolition, at least, but I want to make sure I understand what's going on before I post anything about that.For over a month after Sept. 20, when we registered with FEMA, we stayed close to the phone, waiting for a call to schedule an inspection. They called this past week with a recorded message saying the devastation in our area was so severe that no inspection is necessary. We still don't know if the remains of the house will be cleared by them as debris or if that will be our responsibility. The area opened for a few days, but we were late learning of it, so had only part of a day to hunt for more possessions, then they closed the area again. We don't know when it will be opened again or how we will find out about it, as Long Beach puts almost nothing in the newspaper, although we continue to look at it online daily.
We have filed an application for an SBA housing loan, but we understand that will be even slower than FEMA. And that too says that an inspection will be required! We have settled with the insurance company for the total of our flood insurance and a tiny bit of wind coverage, as uprooted trees took out the patio and some of the fence and there are a few water stains on the ceilings. And Maurice's pickup was totaled, so we got nearly the Blue Book quote on that. Soon after he found a very similar truck, just newer and a prettier color, at a good price, so he bought that. Now we don't need to borrow a truck every time we need to go back to the Coast. We aren't investing in furniture, etc., until we have decided where we are going to settle.
Please don't think we are whining. Every day we talk about how much luckier we are than so many. We did have some flood insurance where so many had none. We are comfortable here, have privacy and space to spread out. And we are truly surprised at what we have been able to salvage. We are far enough away from the devastation that we don't have to look at it every day. That must be stressful and depressing. You are no doubt seeing reports of all the FEMA trailers delivered to Miss. They are poorly built travel trailers, designed to be lived in for less than two years. Where utilities are available they are placed on the damaged property, but are poorly installed and in some cases they have been left locked, so the people are still living in tents. And it is getting cold, even here in Mississippi. Others are crowded together in public parks.
Soon we are going to start looking for where we want to make our permanent home, but we do not plan to make that decision quickly. We plan to stay there for a long time. For now, we plan to meet our son in Memphis for Thanksgiving and then go to his place in St. Louis for Christmas. In the meantime, we are trying to do some normal things. I went to Hattiesburg on Oct. 19th for a quilt guild meeting and plan to present their program in Nov. as scheduled. Yesterday I sewed the binding on a new quilt and am ready to finish the handwork. I picked it up from the shop where it was quilted a couple days before we evacuated (and took it and a number of other quilts with us)--now that shop is gone.
The culling has begun.
I came to the conclusion that there wasn't a single character on Surface that I didn't want to see eaten by sea monsters. Not a good sign, so that season pass was the first sacrifice. I also realized that Supernatural was a show with a moral. Unfortunately, that moral is that you should never let Dungeons & Dragons players reference the Monster Manual during a game. House is therefore the clear winner for that time slot.
Still in contention is the Wednesday night 8 Central timeslot. Both Lost and Veronica Mars came out of the gates strong, though I'll admit to a preference for the little lady from Neptune. Thankfully, it appears that the local UPN franchise may be giving Veronica a second airing on Saturday evening, though I'll keep the VCR (Curse serial-access media!) standing by until I'm sure that airing is of the first-run episodes.
Thursday night, however, is still a major battleground. At 7, Smallville is up against the rescheduled Alias. I haven't watched that much Smallville over the last couple of seasons, but I want to check out James Marsters's stint as classic comic villain Brainiac. The premiere reminded me why I havcen't been a regular watcher, though, so we'll see how long that lasts. With Jennifer Garner's pregnancy, Alias may be foundering as well, but I'll give the new fill-in spies (especially the creepy-hot chick from that FBI drama that tanked a few months ago) a chance. There are rumors that Lena Olin will be returning fo a few episodes, and that may be enough to keep me around in the hope of catching some Spy Mommy action. (For that matter, if they ditched the rest of the cast except for Lena Olin and Victor Garber, or gave them a spin-off, the resulting program would have my slavish devotion. Not that I don't like the rest of the APO crew, but Spy Mommy and Spy Daddy would be the baddest duo on TV.)
The 8PM Thursday slot is still in play as well. While the Night Stalker revivial didn't fully draw me in with its pilot, I'm willing to give it another episode or two to find its footing. On the other hand, I'm still not convinced that the original CSI (I've given up on the spin-offs) is holding up very well anymore. I'll wait and see, but Thursday night could end up being a loss all around.
What else am I watching? I'm still hoping for a payoff from Invasion's slow development, to see if the show is worth following long-term. Threshold's pace of revelations is more to my liking, though its dependence on pseudoscience geekery over action makes me worry about its survival in front of a mainstream audience. Finally, I still like Numb3rs, even if it's not gripping me as much as it did in its first season.
