Well, we are such a chatty little group that we've already logged 350 comments in our personal messages to each other; and Operafanatic suggested that it might be a good time to create a break and continue in a new thread. Excellent idea. So let's keep talking. And newcomers are welcome, too!

Hi all! It's been a busy couple of days, and I probably won't be checking in again until Sunday afternoon; but I had to take a minute to say "hi."

Nyon, I especially wanted to include my get well wishes and to give you permission to keep being a baby!!! I am a firm believer that when you're sick, you have a right to be babied. After my kids got too old and too independent to snuggle with mama or to let me pamper them on a regular basis, I took full advantage of days when they were sick and welcomed the cuddling, spoiling, etc. My daughter still, at 27, calls me when she's sick since my son-in-law hasn't quite gotten in touch yet with his "nurturing side." LOL! She misses having someone make her a bed on the sofa and bring her soup and all her favorite things.

Kristen, you reminded me of my daughter who also likes to lie with her head in my lap ahd have her hair stroked. And I'm so glad your little guy is fine! I know how scary those incidents are.

Christina, it was good to hear from you on the racial thread. You said you've had lots of things going on in your "real life." I hope they're all good things!!

You're all making me think I need to start watching a little more entertainment TV. What little TV I watch is always the news, with the exception of an occasional What Not to Wear. I was an HGTV junkie for a few years, but it seems they've dropped all of their good design shows, and now all I ever see on the program listing is real estate shows. Probably just as well. When I watched those design shows all the time, I wanted to redecorate my house every other week. :-)

Going over to Fort Lauderdale (a few hours on Alligator Alley) for a couple of days. I'll check back in on Sunday afternoon.

I spent a couple of days on the other coast this weekend. I hadn't been over to Fort Lauderdale in a couple of years; and this time it was for meetings, so I didn't get out about town a lot. But Saturday afternoon, I spent a couple of hours on some of their water taxis and saw some pretty amazing things. Our hotel was on one of the intracoastal waterways, near but not on the beach. The water taxis transport people along the intracoastals. They're meant to be a transportation service, not a tour-boat company; but all of the drivers and their assistants give lots of information along the way. I think every celebrity in the world must have a house or a yacht or both in Ft. Lauderdale!!! Some of the houses we saw were the size of small high schools. There were far too many names to remember, but Wendy (Dave Thomas's daughter for whom his hamburger chain was named) has a winter home there. There was also a modest-looking little place, which we were told was quite a gem in its day, that was once owned by Sonny and Cher and where we were told Chastity was born. The most enormous house we saw was owned by the founders of Sunglass Hut. I'm sure there are high schools that are NOT as big as that one! Robert DeNiro's name was mentioned, also Joe and Rose Kennedy. They had a house there while they were waiting for their place on Palm Beach to be built. And way too many others to recall. The only thing more startling than the prices of these houses were the price tags on the yachts we were passing. There is one yacht maker, we were told, whose prices START at 50 million; and you have to pay 25% down and then wait 5 years for the yacht to be built! Someone pointed out Bill Gates's yacht, but it was one of the more "modest"-looking crafts.

Next time, the beach! When I lived in Miami back in the 70s, the Fort Lauderdale beach was always our beach of choice since Miami put all of their hotels right on the beach and Fort L. built theirs on the other side of the street, leaving miles and miles of beautiful, open public beach (and so spring break was born!).