May the Fourth

May the Fourth be with you!  It's a Saturday, and we had a fun day today, starting out with Team Edge practice of course. I was over at the church getting things set up for tomorrow morning while Maddie was with the team, getting closer to perfecting their routines. She said today wasn't a perfect day on her end, but mistakes happen from time to time, and Maddie's not known to make too many mistakes at all with the routine.

There was some trouble with squirrels this morning, as they broke a potted plant on the back deck.  So the squirrel trap came out again, and by this afternoon we got #76 transported away.  While out, Maddie and I picked up some high protein stuff for Mom, some drinks and cheese and crackers too.  We've got to build up Mom's bone density.  There's a doctor's appointment about this very thing next week, and we're anxious to start what we can with more calcium and protein in the diet.

This afternoon, we had a long visit with Nana and Ye-Ye, just catching up on a lot of things.  They are going on a trip to Minnesota and then over to Montana to finally visit Glacier Park, so I can live vicariously through them for a bit with the traveling. I don't think I've been past the Mississippi since 2008.  Anyway, they're stopping by some places they've always wanted to see, and that's wonderful of course. Maddie had a lot to share with her grandparents, and it was a nice visit.

The weather today was made up of heavy clouds with tremendous rain falling here and there, although never on us.  You could see it all over though.  We were crossing the bridge over Lake Lanier and you can see all the way down to the south this tremendous heavy downpour.

One fun thing this evening was our traditional look at the Kentucky Derby.  We started watching a half-hour before, and each of us raced to the couch considering the options and picking our horses to win.  We were looking online at the names of the horses, finding out what their number was, and making our usual educated guesses.  Here were this year's picks:

Maddie - Fierceness

Mom - Catching Freedom

Dad - Mystik Dan

And the race started, and I was so absolutely into this one because Mystik Dan was in the top six pretty much the entire way.  His odds were 16-1, and I just had a hunch about him based on his rider, and wow... what a race!  I actually stood up at the end when they crossed the finished line, cheering.  It came down to a photo finish!

Mystik Dan won the day, and that was one of the most exciting races I've seen.  Pretty fun!  I think we spend about a half hour on a horse race every year, and with all our equestrian knowledge, we usually do pretty well.  I think Mom placed fourth, and Maddie's choice - the favorite of the day - didn't do as well this time.

We went into Star Wars mode after that.  We saw the new episodes of "Tales of the Empire," and we even ordered a few new Star Wars games for the Nintendo Switch.  They're actually old games, but they've updated them for the Switch, and we'll be visiting with those soon.  The last week, we've been having fun making up these Star Wars songs with an AI program.  We did a "They Can Fly Now" polka, a 50's song about Willrow Hood running with his ice cream maker, a funky groove song about Greedo called "Macklunkey," a 40's big band song called "I Have the High Ground," a country song called "I Don't Like Sand," and even a song about Maddie's little astromech, "H2-D2," a song called "Astro Taco Fiesta."  

Tonight's feature flick was "A New Hope," of course, because it's still an incredible movie.  We were watching this one tonight, still amazed.  Could you imagine today's filmmakers having a six minute scene inside a trash compactor?  That's not the key feature of the movie, of course, but it does make for an exciting scene.  What makes the movie is the story and the characters, and again, this movie was so robbed of an Academy Award.  Time has proven this argument right - sorry, "Annie Hall."  Does anyone remember "Annie Hall" like they do "Star Wars"?  I could go on and on about the lines of people wanting to see this movie, the action figures, the sequel movies, the television shows, the cartoons, the novels, the clothing, the conventions, the amusement parks, and more.  It was such a big part of my life growing up. I still have so many action figures, books, comics, t-shirts and more.  Anyway, Star Wars is a big deal, and tonight we closed out the day reading from our Star Wars book, the latest entry in "From a Certain Point of View."  

We said our prayers, and soon we were off to sleep.  May the Fourth Be With You!