For a limited time only (I hope) we'll also throw in this lovely SNEEZE when you purchase COUGH. Hurry! Act now while supplies last!

Stuffy turned to Coughy
Yes, indeed...my stuffy nose is gone! Here to replace it is the New! and Improved! COUGH!!! Wake yourself up with this chest ripping cough every morning. Or how about at night right when you are going to go to bed, how about a chough to tell the person next to you how much you care for them. Best used during a live performance of your own! Generate both sympathy and distance from your friends and family with your very own New! and Improved! COUGH!

I shouldn't have fallen for that pitch...but for some reason I got it anyway. I was simply overcome with wonder and amazement at how they could have two exclamation points in the middle of a sentence, as if they were two words with different meanings than their exclamation point-less counterparts. And then the word with all caps really got me. That one took me right up to the counter, out the door, and back home all before I realized what I had purchased.

NYFA Softball update: We won again. 29 to 2. If we keep this up we might be in the playoffs....first time ever for this team. I have to hide my COUGH from them so they don't try to buy it from me. Then the team would be really screwed.

Stuffy and Sick
So, it's cold season for me I guess. Why is it that only one nostril decides to clog up entirely and the other stays free and clear? I mean I guess it is better than having both clogged...but you have to admit that it is kind of annoying. This is especially true when you are trying to blow your nose and one side is raw from all the wind rushing through and the other is filled with cement. So, the stuffy nose, plus the cough, plus my voice lesson tomorrow, equals...no fun for me.
Oh...NYFA Softball update...our team won another game on Monday, with a score of 26 - 5. This was a really fun one for us...you see, last season our record was 0-10 (the 0 is wins my friend), so any and every win is great...Hey, I even hit a grand slam! It happened to be inside the park...actually, it happened to be inside the infield...there also happened to be enough errors on their part to get us all in on that play. But it was a GRAND SLAM!!!!! :-)
I'm going to go blow my nostril.

By the way...for anyone interested. My friend Kevin got a new car, the Scion tC, which is quite a nice little car. It has a sweet sunroof that extends from driver to passenger doors and a roof that is made up of large glass panels, all of which flow back toward the hatch-back style truck. Another cool little feature that the car has is the reclining back seats! As long as there is absolutely nothing in the trunk you can actually recline the back seats a bit (into the trunk area). And the alloy wheels that come with the car standard are pretty sweet as well, as you can see. For those who haven't noticed this part yet either...Kevin is in fact trying to look 'cool', so this little car review should boost his confidence as well....not in humanity...but in soending money to make you happy. I have wasted absolutly too much time talking about Kevin here...time to change the subject....um....cheese cloth. There.

Another win!
Team NYFA wins again! This is our second win of the season...and with 6 more regular season games left we are looking to win some more! I hit my first grand slam ever tonight as well...and even though it was a single that turned into a grand slam because of errors on the other teams behlaf, it was still a friggen grand slam. So...26-5. Not a bad win by any standards.

Forest Fire
I have never, until a couple of days ago, ever seen a forest fire. I had always imagined it would look like a massive forest of burning trees...as if someone had turned on a light switch in the forest, and all the trees turned on...with flames. If you have never seen one before, it is much less dramatic, yet still mesmerizing to watch. (I found myself staring at the flames from my balcony through binoculars for an hour.) So instead of a huge field of flames, the fire was more of a very long thin orange line that snaked across the mountain. Smoke around the ridge was reflected the orange light from the blaze, and every now and then the fire would hit a particularly dry spot and flare up, sending long tendrils of fire into the sky. Helicopters and special planes (which I later learned had been sent on loan from Canada) could be seen dropping their loads of water onto the flames. I checked periodically throughout the night only to see the fires still burning. In the morning the smoke was so thick above the Burbank hills, where the fire had been, that you couldn't see anything. The biggest fear now is that as we enter the rainy season here in Southern Cal, the soil isn't protected from mudslides. Yikes....anyway...enough of this talk.