A change in plans returns me to Chicago before I leave for a week in sunny, and hopefully electrically powered, California. 

While enjoying my delightful trip to Connecticut, I saw Moulin Rouge (so ex-cit-ing the audience will stomp and cheer) and A.I. (I'm guessing the beginning and end were Spielberg and the middle was Kubrick). To be honest, I enjoyed the former much more than the latter. Ewan McGregor spent nearly 70% of the film with his mouth wide open and on some level, I found that far more appealing than Jude Law in his plastic Lego hair.

So, run along now, be good and conscientious consumers and attend both films. You could do much worse. (Read: Pearl Harbor.)

For those of you wishing to skip the obligatory angst, please click here. For the rest of you, I suggest you fortify yourselves with an alcoholic beverage or large amounts of chocolate before you carry on. As you no doubt realize by now, I am quite dull when I'm angsty. 

Hula interviewed in Alachua early this week and it went well. As he was telling me all about on the phone, he suddenly cut himself off and shouted, "STORKS ARE WALKING AROUND OUTSIDE!" 

To me, storks are zoo animals. The idea that I might move there and they might actually wander around my backyard really flicks my Bic. And alligators! He told me one of the people he interviewed with found a small one in his pond that morning.

Man. Zoo animals. Plus, there’s the whole house and acres of land and a goat and a box of baby chicks thing. Very strong selling points for me, indeed, and Hula knows exactly what to tell me. It was apparent in my three-minute phone call with him that morning that he really wants to be there.

I want to make him happy.

I want to make me happy too. But I’m afraid that without difficulty, this will probably not occur. Either way I play this out in my head, there are sizable obstacles. 

One of the largest simply being that storks or gators be damned, I don't want to live in Florida. Period.

On a less complicated note, I discovered boxes and boxes of treasures this weekend. Things I thought were gone forever have been killing time in my parent's attic, just waiting for me to rediscover them. One of which, was my very first radio--a Christmas gift I received in the early 70's. 

Neither the finest woofers nor fanciest tweeters can ever compare to the tinny, crackly, sweet sweet music I heard on this battery operated AM-only wonder while huddled under the covers, late at night on WPOP out of Hartford. I listened to Helen Reddy tell me tales of the impossibly sad Delta Dawn and Ruby Red Dress. I was enraptured as Bo Donaldson urged Billy not to be a hero and David Gettes implored Joey to run. I learned about the night Chicago died and the night the lights went out in Georgia. Zager and Evans told me what it would be like in the year 2525 just after Coven  finished a story that was a'written long ago, about a kingdom, on a mountain and the valley folk below.

It's grandly apparent that I've been a dork a long long time. Keep it green!

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