Riddle Me This
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How is placing a portion of one's income tax into the stock market any different than a portion of our taxes subsidizing the stock market? How does this tactic not artificially bolster our American stocks?

So The Teenager
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Yesterday
The phone rang as L was getting ready for school. It was Amylinn, calling to see if I had plans for the day. She wanted to go window shopping and show off her new car.
"Woo Hoo!" I thought, "I get to see my friend!"
So we went shopping. Because, you know that window shopping always results in bringing home something. I brought home chocolate.

We went to Starbucks, and she bought me a toffee nut latte with organic milk. Yum. Then we drove all around the Arnold Mega Multi Strip Mall. Words cannot describe how disgustingly overbuilt this place was. They had like 12 anchor stores. Herds of SUV's roamed the asphalt prairie, while suburban mothers browsed one store or another.

The two of us decided to window shop in Gordmans. I had been there before, but all I could remember was that I liked the place.
Yeah, I still like Gordmans. Everything is affordable, and the patrons are quiet, the employees are unobtrusive -yet visible, in case you need help, and they carry everything you could ever want to decorate your home. They also sell clothes.
Needless to say, we spent hours browsing Gordmans. It was lots of fun.

After endless shopping, Amylinn drove me (and my chocolate) home. I turned right around and headed off to pick L up from school. When he came out, he looked kind of grumpy. He opened the door and dropped his backpack into the truck while saying, "You are so in trouble."
I looked at him and said, "Uh?" I was baffled.
He exclaimed, "I was sick today! They would have sent me home, except you didn't answer the phone! Not any of the FIVE times I called!"
And then he gave me the "I'm very disappointed in you" look.
It was really funny, but I'm a good mom, so I didn't laugh. Instead, I said, "Oh, honey. I was out all day. I wasn't home. ...Why didn't you call your dad's cell phone?"

He'd forgotten the number. And he was so full of angst, that it didn't occur to him to ask Mrs. W to look it up.

CSPAN
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I was watching C SPAN, because, you know, I'm a geek groupie or something. Anyway, I was watching a Democratic Representative give his lone voice of dissent on a bill that would clarify a law passed in 1991. Way back then, around the time my son was discovering his toes, Congress passed legislation that created research funding for advanced computers. Now they want to clarify where our tax dollars should go.
I have no problem with this, and neither does Mr. Lone Voice of Dissent. He just wanted to throw in a line asking researcher to think about how to deal with self-aware computers, before such self-awareness becomes reality.

He specifically referenced DARPA, and said they were working toward a computer that could think, learn, and reflect on it's self.
You can read about DARPA's mission here. I'm too lazy to troll all around their site. Their main mission statement doesn't say anything about making a self-aware computer.

But it got me thinking... We as people take our bodies for granted. We might think of ourselves as organic machines, but it rarely occurs to us to compare ourselves to computers. So think about this:

We are covered with data receptors, both inside and out. An unimagineable amount of data constantly pours into our brains. Stuff we never think about. Think about just your skin. Your skin alone feels the seat your sitting in, the air around you, every place where your body presses against itself, every drop of sweat, even the light sheen of oil on your nose. In addition, your skin is constantly testing the ambient moisture and temperature around you. And that's just the beginning.

Consider that you have multiple receptors sending this data, not just one. Each one sends data packets multiple times per second. And your brain deals with it all. It takes in all that data, makes decisions, gives orders; and once in a while it flags something for you to actually notice. That's when you decide to scratch an itch, or shift your position in the chair.
Amazing.

Sorting a genome seems simple by comparison.

The Handcuffed 5 Year Old
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When a child is refusing to behave -tearing pictures off the wall, throwing toys in the trash, standing on tables and desks, and taking swings at an assistant principal- What should you do?

What if the mother of this child left written instructions that her child was not to be touched; that the teachers were not allowed to lay a hand on her child... not even a restraining hug?

One school finally gave up and called the police.
When the police officers arrived, the girl calmed down; but the police handcuffed her anyway. Then they took her to a car and let her sit there until her mom came to get her.

The mom is taking it to court, which is the only reason we know about it.

And now for my opinion.
That mom needs to be smacked upside the head.

Ok, not really. But someone needs to sit her down and talk with her until she understands the extreme disservice she is giving her child. Children need to know the rules that govern our society. They need to learn how to behave at an early age, or else their adulthood will be an endless litany of failure.

You cannot stand on a table at work. You would lose your job. You must learn another way of getting your point across. If you go through life declaring yourself untouchable, a lot of people are going to touch you anyway.

Which brings to mind my son's second grade teacher. Early in the school year, her father passed away. Shortly after that, she started abusing the students. It started with yelling and singling out students for ridicule. This teacher and I butted heads at least twice a month. She would tell me some awful thing L did in school -like getting out of his desk and laying down on the floor- and I would ask her, "What is going on in the classroom? L doesn't do this at home, so there must be some underlying factor. Is he being picked on by another child?"
She always said the rest of the class was fine, it was only my child who was a problem. I might give that some credence (no matter how well behaved he is at home) except I'd hear her saying the same things to a different parent the next day. Blah, blah, blah, your child is broken.
Us parents would stand outside and chat before the bell rang, and would you believe that 90% of our kids were ADD? According to this teacher, they were!
At her insistance, we had our children tested. Lo and behold, the majority were totally normal children.

I believed that the way to deal with a grieving, bullying teacher, was through discussion. No matter how much I wanted to be a mamma bear and attack her, I knew I needed to stay calm. Getting angry would only make it worse for L at school.
But one day he came out of the building in tears. The kinds of tears that wrack your body, and make it hard to breathe. He had a nasty red mark on his throat, where his teacher had poked him. I lost my willingness to discuss his behaviour. I also lost my temper.

I laid it out on the table for her. Touching my son was unacceptable, because apparantly she couldn't control herself. She was letting a 7 year old frustrate her to the point where she had to strike out at him. She needed to get control of herself, not the other way around. And. If my son came out of her class with one more mark, I would not sue her. I would break her arms. And then I poked at her throat to show her that I meant it. I didn't touch her, I just came close.

Then I took L up to the principal and said much the same thing. I had tried to keep things pleasant. I had tried to give his teacher the leeway to teach as she needed to. And she crossed the line. Crossed it so far she was in another country.

L really suffered for my loss of temper. He spent just about every recess "standing on the fence". He was not allowed to play with the other students. The students were told not to talk to him.

So I had to intervene again. I cornered the teacher... (knowing how cornered animals behave, but it was the only way to talk to her anymore. She had taken to avoiding me.) So I approached her until she had nowhere to go, and I let her know that I had discussed this with a lawyer. (I hadn't.) And that I had a legal right to sit in on her classes. I told her that I didn't know how that might affect her class, and I didn't much care.

I never did sit in on a class. The other parents beat me to it. There were only 6 weeks of school left at that time, and there were more parents willing to sit in class than there were weeks left in the school year. So thanks to those wonderful mothers and fathers, my son got to spend his last weeks at that school playing at recess and actually learning something in class.

The next year we transferred to St. John the Baptist. I took L there after his first day at the bad school. When I found out that his 3rd grade teacher was the same monster who had "taught" him second grade.

St. John's was awesome. The admitted L that day. Didn't even wait for the paperwork to transfer before they stuck him in a class. And now he's graduating and going to one of the finest college prep high schools in Missouri. I'm very, very proud of him.

Extreme
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Once a week, I cry at the TV. Because I watch Extreme Makeover -Home Edition.
I've watched a whole bunch of very deserving families get the perfect shelter; and I usually wonder about how hard it would be to live in a grand building, when you used to live in crap.

This week's family... wow. They were living in a 2 bedroom shack. It was so run down, the demolition crew didn't bother with heavy equipment. The attached ropes to the place and pulled it down.

Wow.

The commercials are over, so I'm going to stop blogging and finish watching the show.

The Continuing Saga of Bread
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I made bread yesterday. Note that I made bread, rather than just trying to make bread.
I've always avoided adding milk. I think bread should be simple. But yesterday I thought I'd try adding some milk to the recipe. I made two loaves. One looked like a french bread baguette, the other was 4 ropes braided together.
I baked them at different temperatures, for different lengths of time, just to see what would happen. The braided bread had a thick, yummy crust. The french bread had a thinner, crispy crust. They both tasted like Wonder brand bread.
(bleah)

So there you have it. I made "perfect" bread, and it was bland. The hubby-man and son agreed that it was bland and uninteresting; as they gobbled it all up.

If you want to make your own bland, uninteresting white bread, you'll need:
1 package of dry active yeast that has a "best if used by" date of 2002
6 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons of butter
5 teaspoons of salt
2 tablespoons of sugar, plus another tablespoon of sugar
1 1/2 cups of milk
1/2 a cup of warm water

stir the ancient yeast and a tablespoon of sugar into the 1/2 cup of warm water. Let that sit while you put the milk, butter, salt and additional sugar in a saucepan. Heat it just enough to melt the butter.
While your wet ingredients are warming up, check your yeast. If there are tan bubbles sitting on top of the water/yeast/sugar mix, and if the bubbles are 2 inches (5 cm) high, then your yeast is usable. Yay!
When the butter is just barely melted, dump the wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Whisk it around to make sure the sugar and salt are dissolved, then start adding flour.
Put one cup of flour in the wet stuff, whisk it around, put in another cup and whisk that around too. You should have goop that looks like pancake mix. Add the yeast and water.
Listen intently as you whisk in the yeast/water mix. The little yeasties will be screaming, "Curse you Breadmaker! Curse you and your wire whisk of doom! Curse you for destroying our bubbly little houses!... Oh, wait... We can move into this nice flour instead... Nevermind."

Gradually stir in your last 4 cups of flour. You'll reach a point where it would be easier to stick your hands in there, rather than try and move a spoon or whisk around. So grab a cutting board, lightly flour it, and dump the flaky, sticky blob of dough onto the board. Knead thoroughly. Within about 5 minutes, the dough will stick to the ball instead of your fingers. Knead it some more, until it looks somewhat like a ball of dough.
Cut the ball of dough in half. Set one half aside and work on the other half. You can knead it a few more times for good measure, but this time you want to try and tuck all the ugly bits inside or underneath. When the top half of your dough ball is reasonably attractive, put it in a lightly greased container, grease the top of the ball, cover it with a warm, damp towel, and stash it in the oven.
Do the same thing with the other half of the dough.
Now find something to occupy your time for an hour or so.
Your yeasties will spend that time making babies and learning about urban sprawl. Little do they know, the apocalypse is looming...
After an hour or so, check on your bread. It should be twice as big as it was when you started. It's time to destroy civilization. (muahaha)
Punch down the dough. Literally. Drop your fist into the middle of your bread. I don't care for large air bubbles, so I also poke my fingers all around the edges of the bread.
Shape the bread however you want, place it on whatever you're going to bake it in, and cover it with a damp towel.
Again, find something to amuse yourself with for 45-90 minutes.
Before baking, beat one egg with a little water and brush it over the tops of your loaves. I have no idea what this does, but the recipe suggested it, so I tried it.

I baked the braided bread for 40 minutes at 375 degrees. It came out a little over done.
I baked the french bread at 425 for 20 minutes and it came out perfect.

I think my bland white bread will be perfect for cinnamon rolls. I might try that for my next bread-baking experiment.

Understanding The End Times Movement
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I didn't get it. I didn't get why there is such a hope for the end of the world. Then I stumbled across this short article, and I began to understand.

I'll gladly stay behind

By BRENDA PETERSON
GUEST COLUMNIST

A neighbor recently insisted I read the Left Behind series. "Especially now after 9/11," he said, "and the blessed countdown for the Rapture has begun."

"Why are you so ... well, cheerful, about the end of the Earth?" I asked him.

He gazed at me with the true alarm of deep pity. "I'm afraid you'll have a rough time of it here during the Tribulations -- plagues of locusts, frogs, viruses ... the Earth attacked by tsunamis, volcanoes, dark legions of the unsaved."

"Don't you love any of us you believe will suffer so?" I said.

This gave my neighbor a moment's pause. But then he admitted with some chagrin. "You can't blame us born-agains for at last getting our heavenly rewards. We've waited thousands of years for End Times."

There's more, of course. Including this line; the one that brought me understanding:

In complex and challenging times, apocalypse is such a simple answer. This fight-or-flight fear is hardwired into our reptilian, forest-slashing, migrating, pioneering species -- leave the Old World behind, find a New World.

It's not just the belief of fundamentalist Christians, either. Countless new-age groups believe they will soon ascend to a higher state of being, leaving behind this sorry material planet.

I wonder if there is bird song in heaven? Are there summer breezes and autumn leaves? What about snow? I wouldn't want an eternity without snowflakes. And people! Wow, people... I know a lot of you out there think humanity sucks, but I disagree. If you were given a higher state of being, through Rapture or alien intervention, or what have you; you would leave behind more than this blue and green planet. You would leave behind laughter, and that wonderful feeling when someone snuggles you. You would leave behind the simple day-to-day joys of this existance.

So I ask you, those of you who believe the end is near... What are your goals? What is it you hope for that makes it worth leaving everything you've been given?

!

There's a wonderful thunderstorm brewing outside. I was walking through the house closing windows, when I heard the tiniest little knock on my front door. I went to the door, peeked through the eye hole thingie, and saw a girl! A girl wearing a SJB uniform! A red headed girl, even!

Let me say that again...

!

She had brought a friend. So there were 2 girls on my doorstep, looking for my son.

I have carpet burn on my chin from how hard my jaw hit the floor.

I was suddenly embarrassed that I was wearing size 16 sweatpants and an ancient tie dye t-shirt. I was also barefoot, and hadn't put on deodorant (because I was planning on shaving my pits, if you must know...)

Fortunately, they were interested in my son, and didn't spare me a second glance.

So There's A New Pope
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When a man becomes the Pope, he chooses a new name. Sometimes he will pick a name with political significance. More often, he will choose the name of a person or saint he admires. Cardinal Ratzinger chose Benedict. Here's some tidbits about Saint Benedict:

Benedict means blessed.
He was one of the earlier saints (c. 480-547 AD) and his life is the stuff of legends.
Supposedly he was of noble birth. He had a twin sister who became a nun. Their mother died in childbirth. He studied in Rome, but ran away to live in a cave when he saw how undisciplined the other students were. He was fed by a raven for the three years he lived as a hermit. He left the cave to lead an abbey, at their request. While there, the other monks came to despise his discipline; so they tried to poison his drink. He blessed the cup, which rendered the poison harmless. He left the abbey and went back to his cave, but people wouldn't leave him alone. He had attracted a following. So he started a monastery, which eventually became 12 monasteries. His sister (Saint Scholastica) once summoned a raging thunderstorm, in order to keep him from going home. Three days later, he saw a dove fly out of her nunnery window, and he knew she was dead.
Legends say that Saint Benedict could read consciences, make prophecies, and forestall attacks of the devil. He was known for driving demons from sacred Pagan groves, and he liked to destroy their icons and altars.

Symbols that are used in conjunction with St. Benedict include a bell, a broken cup (with or without a serpent), a crozier, a rod of discipline, and the raven.

He is the patron saint of farmers, coppersmiths, monks, speliologists (cave explorers), schoolchildren, dying people, and servants who have broken their master's belongings. You should pray to him if you're having a problem with any of the following: nettle rash, poison, witchcraft, fever, gall stones, inflammatory diseases, kidney disease, or temptations.

Needless to say, I hope the new Pope chose his name for some reason other than a desire to be like St. Benedict.

A pagan eye for Confirmation part two is below A pagan eye for confirmation. I hate reading the end of a story before the beginning, so I put them in order.

A Pagan Eye For Confirmation
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Where to begin this story? Hmmm. It started with a secret. L's grandma bought a plane ticket so that she could fly in and see L get confirmed. She bought it back in October. And then the school changed the date. We e-mailed the new day to grandma, and they changed it again. And again. Eventually, they wound up with the same date they started with.
What with all the date changes, we thought my MIL wouldn't be able to come. Except that she was coming. I knew, and my mom knew. Neither of us told a soul.
Thus hubby and son were pleasantly surprised to see her. Yay!

Before the ceremony, my MIL and the hubby-man chatted happily while I sat and worried. Because I know Catholics, and this was a rite of passage ceremony. The number of candles in use was enough to tell me we'd be celebrating high mass. Which meant incense. And my mother-in-law is allergic to incense. She's also allergic to pets, smoke, flowers... anything that throws off scent. I worried that she would sit there politely, with a smile on her face, until she fell into an asthmatic fit.
Eventually, I broke into their conversation, and warned her about the incense factor. She said she was expecting it, and had taken her meds before hand. (whew!)

Then the ceremony began...

A Pagan Eye For Confirmation Part Two
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The Archbishop had other things to do that day, so we got a Monsignor instead. This was a very good thing, because I would have refused to let Raymond Burke "bless" my son. Dammit, if L is going to be confirmed, I want him to get the whole holy deal. I do not want it tainted by the Archbishop of Evil: Raymond Burke; closer of churches and warrior against St. Stanislaus. That man will die a martyr if he stays here much longer. St. Louisans don't have a lot of tolerance for intolerant, money-grubbing Archbishops. How that man made it that close to the Papacy is beyond me. But I digress... My anti-Burke rant can be saved for another day. Because this post is about my son and his evening of fun.

Mass began with a procession. The school choir sang something we couldn't quite make out, while a variety of people paraded down the aisle. There were two altar boys (altar persons, it just so happened that they were both male), one deacon, three priests, the monsignor, all the confirmees, and all their sponsors.

I won't rehash every point of the mass. If you're Catholic, you already know it; and if you're not, you probably don't care. But this mass showed me how thoroughly paganised I am. I viewed it the way I would view an open full moon ritual. I watched their ceremonies and energy workings, and thought it was really neat.

The Candles
Candles provide energy, among other things; and Catholic candles (once consecrated) absorb negativity, burn it up as flame, and give back a gentle neutrality. It's a subtle use of the fire element.

The Incense
Incense is a purifier, a carrier of prayers. It represents the air element. With Catholics, incense use is a high art. They have fun with it. They use it during the procession to pave the way up to the altar. They wave it at everyone gathered at the altar. They wave it over the bible before the priest reads the gospel. And for L's confirmation, they threw in an extra bit. I don't recall this from my childhood, maybe because I wasn't paying attention... The incense bearing altar boy carried the censor to the priests. Oh! The priests! I haven't mentioned them yet! Each one was a unique individual. The monsignor was like a business man. He took his exalted status seriously, without being smug or prideful. He knew he had a solemn duty to carry out, and he did his job well. (I guess it beats paperwork!) He had an attendant, whom I thought of as "the bodyguard". Because he was a big, burly guy who never left the monsignor's side. There were also the parish priests; Father Rice -the pastor, and Father Speizia -the happy priest. Ok, so...

The altar boy brought the censor to the happy priest, who held it while the monsignor blessed and lit it. The happy priest waved it at the other priests. They bowed to him, he bowed back, and everybody made the sign of the cross. Then he came out to the audience and waved the censor at us. He gave us a bow, and came up grinning. It was pretty cool.

The Blessing
This is a rite of water, that most pagans sadly skip. The water is consecrated beforehand and placed in a bowl. A doo-dad that looks like a rattle also rests in the bowl. For the blessing rite, the priest with the most clout (the monsignor, in this case) sprinkles the whole crowd with consecrated water. He does this by using the rattle doo-dad. He dips it in the bowl (which is carried by an altar boy), spins it three times, then pulls it out of the water and flicks it at the crowd, causing drops of water to rain down on us all. Is that not cool? Think what you could do with a rite like that!
Walk and flick, walk and flick, until most everybody has gotten a drop. When I was a kid, the priest would chant in Latin while he was flicking. This was a silent ceremony.

The TransSubstantiation
I would place this in the Earth category, just to round things out. Although it's that and more. When done properly, the TransSubstantiation is the coolest part of the mass. The priest literally draws down God and puts Him in unleavened bread and watered down wine. Which you get to eat and drink later on.
I had trouble keeping a straight face during this one, because there were 4 priests at the altar, trying hard to mesh their energies to perform this most sacred of rites.
The monsignor did the actual transsubstantiation, while bodyguard priest stood behind and to the right, happy priest stood behind and to the left, and beyond him was Father Rice. Bodyguard and happy priest both lifted a hand and pretended to do nothing, while pouring energy into the monsignor. They looked so casual. Their energies weren't meshing well, until bodyguard priest tweaked the end result before it went into the unleavened bread. None of that was funny, of course. It was poor Father Rice, who had me mentally laughing. He was one priest too many. So he wasn't participating. Except that he kept rocking up onto his toes and peeking over the shoulder of happy priest, to make sure they were doing it right.
It was cute.

Confirmation
This is a rite of passage, wherein you are given the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is important, because the Apostles couldn't perform miracles until after they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit. So once you've gotten it, you can do everything the Apostles did... if God so wills it.
The gift is given through a dab of grease to the forehead.
I hope I'm not being sacrilegious in talking about this stuff. I found the whole process interesting. When I received my confirmation, I was too emotional to pay much attention to the ceremony.

No Title
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A friend of mine just bought a house. She gave me the tour a few days ago. And, boy, did she get a steal on this place. But that's not what I wanted to blog about.

In the midst of the tour, I spotted a scale in one of the bathrooms. I don't own a scale, and she knows it. So when I pointed to the scale, she said, "Yeah! Go ahead!"
I stepped on and she peered over my shoulder. We both watched as the number showed up in the little window. She said, "That's great!"
I asked, "Is this scale accurate?"
Because it read 130.
I last saw that number on a scale in 1993, and I don't know what to make of it. I don't want to be too happy about it, in case I gain again. And I'll be damned if I'm going to be unhappy. I can wear all my favorite clothes again!

Gotta Have Faith
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To make a potentially long explanation short(er, I'm re-reading some old science fiction that made mention of Thomas Huxley. So I looked the guy up. This self-proclaimed "Darwin's Bulldog" wrote some very interesting stuff back during the Victorian age.

Victorian writing is a little bit difficult. I need to pause over some of it in order to translate the wording to modern American speak. Which is entertaining, but time consuming. Anyway, one of Huxley's articles discusses heaven vs. the heavens, and other things. I don't really know what else the essay says, because I stopped reading it. The mention of "heaven" got me to thinking.

I don't believe I will go to heaven when (If?) I die. I don't believe I'll go to hell, either. I believe that I'll go somewhere for a while, and then I'll be reincarnated.

I have no reason to believe this, but I believe it nonetheless. I believe just as firmly that some people do go to heaven. Complete with angels and the throne of God.
I find staying there for all eternity unimaginable. It's something I just can't wrap my mind around. At most I can picture a ball of energy -the soul of a person, if you will- carrying a lifetime of experiences to a larger ball of energy, and merging with it. Then I picture that energy leaving the greater mass to experience something else.
Well, part of that energy anyway. I think "we" drop off certain bits, and pick up new bits... Or something...

I guess that's the point of faith. You believe it as truth even when you can't explain it.

I think it's hilarious that we all believe something different, and each of us is absolutely right. I have faith in it.

Abby Normal's Brain
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We did yardwork! All friggin day, we did yardwork. We moved fire wood and dug holes, and spread dirt around to level the yard. And then L spent the night with a friend, while the hubby-man and I propped our feet up before the outdoor fireplace and enjoyed a well-deserved rest.

There's not a whole lot you can do in front of an outdoor fire in the middle of a city. Especially when your neighbor's children are still out playing and you don't have a privacy fence. So we sat and listened to the fire crackle. And damn, it was nice.
We also discussed randomly.

The hubby-man mentioned that there was a time when he thought of Humanity as a failed experiment. I turned and stared at him. He pointed out that most people are miserable for much of their lives. They live their lives in boxes of made of limited curiosity. They never look up, and they rarely look out.
These people live life as if the goal is to make it out alive.
And that baffles me. I can not conceive of such a life. How can you be here and not want to take advantage of it?
You have eyes with which to see the endless variety of the world. How can you see it and not marvel? Your nose can pick out the scent of a loved one in the midst of a crowd. How is that not wonderful? Only chicken tastes like chicken. Alligator tastes like alligator, no matter what the pundits say. I could go on and on. And yet...

And yet, someone who lacks one or more of these common senses seems happier to be here than the average man.

I don't get it. I don't want to get it. This life, this here, this now, is precious to me beyond measure. And apparently, that makes me abnormal.

So what do you think? Is your day to day life something to be got through? If so please tell me why, because I don't understand.

Hum.

I finally entered something into Blogging For Books, but you won't find it here. Huh uh. No way. Because the topic is "cruelty", and I want to keep my readers. I stuck it in my other blog. I figure those readers have already been exposed to some of the worst of my past. A little more cruelty shouldn't drive them away.
But you guys... I want you to keep thinking I'm a nice person. So don't go there. Stay here and read about the things my cat has broken instead.

In the past 30 days, Hunter has:
shattered the Galileo thermometer
broken the italian glass horsie -the last of my physical links to my grandfather
knocked over my bamboo plant, breaking the vase itused to live in
and pulled a dragon staute off the table

Yeah, he's just a force of Chaos.

Spring Rain
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I like spring rain, in moderation. And today we're getting a moderate amount of rain. Just enough to keep the streets wet and fresh-looking.
But I hate spring rain drivers. You know, the ones who think a wet road is akin to ice or something. It's the only reason I can think of that would have people drive at 20 mph and tap their brakes 1000 ft before a stop sign.

I was stuck behind these overly-cautious drivers the whole time I was on the road today. Well... at least until I started taking the alleys instead. Because I'd rather drive a steady 15 mph than see somebody's tail lights flash at me for 1000 feet.

Everybody's Dying
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The Pope, Johnny Cochran, Prince Ranier... Who's next?
And speaking of death; I think it's pretty damn rude for the President of the United States to butt in line to see the corpse of the Pope. Especially since he's invited to the actual funeral, whereas all those people in line aren't. And it's not like he's Catholic or anything. His brand of Christianity says the Catholics are a bunch of idol worshippers. What with the statues of saints adorning their churches and all.

On a side note; since L attends a Catholic school, he has Friday off. This is so that he can watch the funeral at home. How cool is that?

I wonder if they'll let the kids watch the voting ceremonies too?

(I skipped school to watch the smoke coming out of St. Peter's Basilica back when John Paul II was chosen. It was neat.)