change of opinion

so, after the arrival of two cases of cheerwine on my doorstep (hooray for meredith!), followed soon by a six-pack of it straight from hickory, nc (yay for my sister!), i feel the need to amend my previous statement re. the taste of cheerwine. it's not really cherry-flavored ginger ale. it's actually much more like cherry flavored dr. pepper.

but it's still amazing.

where does she come up with this stuff?

in reference to the loud booming and popping sounds coming from the field next door:

mom: "what is that?"
mary: "i think it's fireworks...or the chinese army."

memorial day

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

it's time time go home when...

...you're spending your sunny friday afternoon before a three-day weekend on the phone with a company that uses a jazz muzak version of "give a little whistle" from pinocchio as their on hold music.

correct definition

phone conversation with my father:

me: "does our company have a signatory?"
dad: "what?"
me: "a signatory. it's on a corporate credit application."
dad: "isn't a signatory the second-in-command in a mafia family?"
me: "HUH?"
dad: "oh no, that's a consigliere. never mind."

for you non-Southerners out there

yes, cheerwine is a real drink.
no, it isn't alcoholic.

but it is fabulous. think cherry-flavored ginger ale.

sadly, however, it isn't sold much outside NC and western VA, so my craving for it will, as yet, remain unfulfilled.

drink of choice

i wish i had some cheerwine.