The further adventures of everyone's least favorite aunt's boyfriend, as described by my dear Cousin Sarah. (Least favorite boyfriend, not aunt.)

Harvey put a cougar in his freezer, intending to later taxidermize it, but forgot to pay the electric bill and now its a stinkin' maggoty mess. If only he could've done right by that roadkill, it would have made a lovely birthday present for someone's 90th.

Dad says, "where do you think he got the cougar?"

As we near Grandma's 90th Birthday, we seem to have been thinking about how we resemble her. Sarah writes, on the "Phillips Nerves" phenomenon:

I do believe I've inherited her "nerves" as has G. Annie and Alice
mentioned the same. What modern psychiatric principle could this be?
Just garden variety "neoroses" ? Or could we have something more
dramatic a la Zelda Fitzgerald? Whatever it is  you can be assured it's
quite deep and soulful.

I tell my kids that they all have to stop nattering at once because "my
nerves can't take it" and in modern parlance that "I can only focus on
one thing at a time  so don't all scream." In a time of true duress
(usually in the car) I'll wail "my stomach feels like it's on fire!'
Then I tell them how I grew up under such quiet, grim circumstances and
thay look at me with blankness. Yes, some of us were simply not made to
create large families. Poor Grandma, she's not a cast iron skillet of a
woman, though now, with Daisy's help she can rock.

On a completely different subject, we watched Kerry's speech last night. That is, my mom watched. My father was Shanghied and I was in the next room.

Kerry (from TV): Yes. I was born in the west wing.

Alice (from offstage): Dan Miller just groaned so loud I heard it.