Wensday 23 May 2007

Bud and family were intending to leave Port St. Lucie early, around 8a, but they didn't actually get going until 920a. They were driving back to Orlando and spending the night there after a day at an "amusement" park called the Holy Land Experience.

It was my intention to move back to Mom & Dad's and free up Kris' leather couch (tough to sleep on) by catching up with them 10-ish while Mom was at her weekly Weight Watchers meeting where she is a greeter and Dad is having a cuppa next door at a restaurant, but since Bud had left later than scheduled, M & D didn't go. Instead Kris and I joined Mom and Dad for lunch at 1230p at R. J. Gator's where we all had 5-way chili and onion strings, except Kris who is following a low-carb diet. My high school buddies know that i regularly rage about the lack of science in the state of nutrition information and the so-called "healthy" lifestyle these days, but i am continually surprised that no one, like my mother and sister, views the facts that diets don't work very well and can be unhealthy as liberating. Kris insists that diets do work but only if they are followed rigorously which people have a tendency not to. My pointing out that Dr. Atkins was not a scientist when he wrote his first book and had not--and still hasn't--conducted large-scale controlled tests published in peer-reviewed journals falls on deaf ears. So she has some low-carb chicken nuggets, what she always gets there, and eschews the appetisers. I'm sure they're good.

We transfer my suitcases in the parking lot and Kris gets to go back to work (she does research for her husband's business.) Mom and Dad go to their lutheran church to count the money in the collection plate from last sunday while i stay home and unpack my things and spread out my computer for the first time since i've been here. i get the internet on my laptop simply by unplugging the network from Mom's computer and plugging it into mine.

Mom warmed up leftovers from the R. J. Gator's lunch for dinner, plus soup and other things, a fairly large dinner dispite the fact that dad and i claimed to be still full from lunch.


Mom takes a few spins around the block on her motor- scooter, then we take the cart to the clubhouse for some jigsaw puzzling. working off to the side, i get 2 sections going pretty good but it was Mom who figured how they fit in the puzzle.