I love me some Olympics. The pageantry, the focus and determination of the athletes, the John Williams soundtrack.

More the pageantry and the John Williams soundtrack, to be honest. Athletes doing well isn’t as interesting to me as athletes doing poorly–and/or throwing fits.

That Swedish wrestler guy threw a classic one.

Oh–and Mark Spitz threw a magnificent one. It’s gained a lot of attention, mostly from folks who didn’t know he shaved off the ’stache. And from folks like me who didn’t know he was still alive.

I love the geopolitics, Bush sitting with Putin while Russian tanks invade Georgia…. The lack of Juan Antonio Samaranch is always pleasant, too.

I even like the rough and tumble involving the nine-year-olds China is attempting to pass off as sixteen-year-old gymnasts.

Can’t quite get behind synchronized diving, though. The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius–faster, higher, stronger. Nothing in there about jumping off a platform and doing identical mid-air twisties.

And I don’t much care for the noodle-men pictograms they’re using to represent the various events. The one for rhythmic gymnastics, for instance:

To me, that doesn’t represent rhythmic gymnastics. It says “somehow my left leg has come detached, but fortunately I found this length of rope with which to tie it back on.”

The Texas Grillhouse in LaVale, Maryland, is tremendous, but the Flo slaw (identified on the menu as “cole slaw”) is a bit too mayonnaisey for my taste. I rate it a 2.7 on the Flo slaw scale.

It’s been a while since I’ve reflected on Florence Henderson’s unfailing devotion to cole slaw:

www.flohome.com

What is your favorite food?
I love pasta. And I love cole slaw. If it is an option, I always get cole slaw, and sometimes I’ll get a double order. It is really good on a turkey sandwich. And I like chicken fingers too. With cole slaw, of course!

A few years ago, I vowed to dedicate myself to getting cole slaw renamed “flo slaw” in her honor. I’m tempted to rededicate myself to that effort. Not a bad legacy–for her or for me.

I scored a 66 on a perfectionism test.

It really bugs me that I didn’t get 100.

I was in the Rayburn House Office Building, which transformed into a Staples when I rounded a corner. Got in the checkout line behind Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly to buy a file folder.

This is, for better or worse, not the first dream I’ve had about Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly.

I don’t know anymore.

From an e-mail I just received: “Attached is a letter that we are also faxing today.”

Icon at the bottom of said e-mail:

I dreamed last night that I was in the Little House on the Prairie episode where Charles is railroaded into joining the Ku Klux Klan.

I don’t think that episode ever aired. Or even existed.

If it had, it would have been a two-parter the way I dreamed it.

With a subplot where Mrs. Oleson seizes control of her hedge fund but ends up losing a bundle anyway.

The wavin’ wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain.

In my defense, I lost valuable time typing in some of the long, fun ones like “Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.”

(How do I remember “Saint Vincent and the Grenadines” but not, say, “Norway”? Sad.)

“Reuters is a global information company providing indispensable information tailored for professionals in the financial services, media and corporate markets. Our information is trusted and drives decision making across the globe. ”–Reuters company overview.

Today’s indispensable information that will drive decisionmaking: “Two in three Australian travelers are either members of the notorious Mile High Club or would like to be a member….“

I’m not much of a blogger and don’t do well on the whole updating regularly thing, but I’m glad to have this to turn to when I need to complain about the fever/cough I picked up over the holiday. Lousy people at church with the handshaking and the hugging and the spreading of germs.

Whatever it is, it’s sitting right in my chest, making me sound like Bea Arthur.

Shady Pines, Ma.

I am currently not very good at managing time. Not a good steward of time. Not a good timesteward, which is notaword.

For instance, for the last half-week, I’ve been wanting to put something in writing about journeys in general–but specifically about the Ohio-Virginia drive I make about six times a year, if not more. Something about making the trip back in the dark sometimes, and how I rely on the taillights of the cars in front of me–even if they’re far ahead of me–to know where I’m going. Something about how I get nervous when I drive through the Maryland mountains late at night, especially when it’s foggy, and there are no cars in sight to follow. Something about how God gives us the guides we need to make our journeys, maybe something about how we can rely on the yellow line along the right shoulder when we don’t have those guides.

Then the attention-deficit kicks in and I reflect on how the highway departments paint those lines with a unique compound that actually disappears in the rain. Brilliant. There was an article recently about British technology efforts to render tanks invisible; all they’ll need to do is paint them highway yellow and soak them down. But I digress from the digression.

No reason I haven’t taken the time to flesh that stuff out yet. Well, maybe work stuff, which for a variety of reasons is much heavier this year than last. And I’ve managed to do some reading this week, finishing off a book we’re using in a Sunday School class and starting another. And slogging through Numbers, which is only slightly more of a page-turner than Leviticus.

I set a highly unrealistic book-reading goal for myself this year (77). I’m at…a lower number than that, even when counting the books in the “started but stopped” pile. I set no movie-watching goal for myself this year, but am closer to that 77 than with the books:

The Good Shepherd
Children of Men
Rocky Balboa
The Queen
Notes on a Scandal
Breach
The Number 23
Amazing Grace
Zodiac
Shooter
300
Pathfinder
The Hoax
The Reaping
Fracture
Hot Fuzz
Mr. Brooks
Spider-Man 3
A Mighty Heart
SiCKO
Talk to Me
The Simpsons Movie
3:10 to Yuma
Eastern Promises
Across the Universe
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
The Kingdom
Rendition
Michael Clayton
American Gangster
Lions for Lambs
August Rush

(August Rush was today’s flick and is a fine movie, but from some prominent holes in the structure of the thing I imagine there was a lot taken out toward the end.)

(And that Keri Russell is a rather appealing-looking person.)

So, yes: time stewardship needs improvement in the reading category, probably not so much in the movies category. The journey to my study (just across the hall) is far shorter than the journey to the theater in the outlet mall (17 miles), and I shouldn’t need any taillights or invisible paint lines to guide my way.

Neither journey involves driving through fog-prone mountains, though, so 2008 could see me hit the 40-movie mark. I can live with that–especially if it’s accompanied by the 40-book mark.

Each House Office Building has its own United States Postal Service joint, so it’s never a big deal to find one open when another is closed. Having said that, it’s a fun little game to play to walk past one at random times of the day to see if it’s open.

An attempt to put something in the mail today has turned into a little logic puzzle. Signs outside the closest post office indicate that:

• it is closed daily from 10:45 AM to 11:15 AM for “administrative reasons,”
• it would only be open today from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and
• it was currently (10:20 AM) closed but would reopen at 11:00 AM.

So I waited until 11:40 AM to head down there–in case they tacked that daily “administrative reasons” closing onto the end of the 11:00 AM reopen. Still closed, but with one of those little clock signs on the door now with the hands set for noon.

Or maybe midnight–who knows.

Maybe Brown can do something for me.

Having mentally prepared myself for the task of shoveling the dead rat in the front yard into a trash bag of some sort, I arrived at home to find the neighbor (the mother of she who informed me of the presence of said dead rat earlier today) outside. From her emanated the dumbest question I’ve heard in a long while: “Why did you have a dead rat in your yard?”

Thinking “Because it’s a less culturally offensive lawn decoration than one of those jockey statues with a sign in his hand that you can put your name on,” I said, “No idea. No idea.”

“Well, I took care of it for you because I didn’t want my dog to get ahold of it.”

And I thanked her muchly, because that was a nice thing to do.

Although she could have raked some of our leaves while she was at it. That’s what I was going to do.

When the girl who lives next door greets you in the morning with a hearty “My puppy found a dead rat in your front yard,” you know it’s going to be a special day indeed.

Not all that special, though, except for said dead rat. I have been keeping track of the Events of Each Day in a new notebook; all I have for today is “Sent latest Farm Bill information to Ohio-based staff” and “Dead rat in front yard.”

Oh: also “Chicken Caesar wrap for lunch.” My life is just go-go-go.

I left said rat in said yard, being late for work as it was and facing a gridlock-plagued commute to boot. So it will be there when I’m able to slip out of here at 8:30ish tonight–unless that puppy decides that it wants a snack/chew toy and comes back for it.

If not, at least I get to add “Used snow shovel to put dead rat into garbage bag” to my daily record of events.

seen we
How the chicken was cloaked together–the life that he suppboses form

Supposing to her forehead. again into wails of through crack in booming barks, they hastily

I attended a friend’s wedding in Ohio over the weekend.

A traditional Catholic wedding–my first in a long while.

Very similar to weddings in some of our United Methodist congregations, except in this one a man got married to a woman.

WashingtonPost.com:

As Storm Subsides, Officials Allow Celebrants to Return to Mall

U.S. Park Police began allowing Independence Day celebrants to reenter the Mall at about 7 p.m. today after the heavy rain and thunder that had sent crowds fleeing for cover began to subside….

Jarrett Fussell, 30, of Annandale, and three friends sought shelter inside the Lincoln Memorial shortly after 5 p.m. The group had been perched at the end of the Reflecting Pool, where they planned to watch the fireworks.

“We were feeling pretty good about our spot,” Fussell said.

They also said they [were] frustrated with the mixed signals they got from police about whether or not to seek shelter. And they were not happy about being trapped in the memorial.

“It’s hot in here,” Fussell said. “This is not where we planned on being for the next four hours.”

Aww. It was rainy and thundering and nobody from the government came by to tell these poor souls exactly what they should do! And they were “trapped” in the Lincoln Memorial, never to escape!

And it was hot in there!

They should definitely sue.

I remember stopping at the Glass House on our way to Tulsa one year to visit relations. It’s built right over the interstate–an overpass restaurant, for lack of a better term.

It’s a McDonald’s now–which is fine, I suppose. It was a Howard Johnson’s back then. I have no idea what I ordered. Probably French fries and milk, the staples of my youth.

I do remember buying–and losing–one of these postcards. A quarter back then, now available for $12.95 plus shipping. That hurts almost as much as having taken the Star Wars landspeeder out of its original packaging.

When a coworker asks where McArthur, Ohio, is located and you don’t know and thus have to look it up, “MacArthur Park” starts playing in your head and doesn’t go away.

It ruins your day–almost as much as if someone left your cake out in the rain.

I don’t think that I can take it.

Note to my coworkers: enough with the “let me borrow your pen.” These aren’t the crappy disposables you buy over at the supply store. They are mine. Seriously.

I bring them from home and they’re mine. I use them at work, but work didn’t pay for them: I did. 0.7 mm Uni-Ball Signo 207s. Mine. Best non-fountain pens I’ve ever used. Mine.

And stop chewing on them. I can’t use them after you’ve snacked on them–you might as well keep them if you’re going to do that.

This is not selfishness. In fact, it’s entirely biblical:

• John the Baptist: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Not a word about pens.

• Paul: “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion.” Clearly the words of someone who was too frequently guilted into sharing his pens.

• John the Apostle: “I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink.” Probably because someone had been chewing on his pen.

My pens. Mine.

My landlord called yesterday to ask if I could re-mow the yard today, even though I did it on Tuesday–he wants to put down fertilizer tomorrow. And he asked me to rake the yard afterward.

1. We don’t have a yard–we have a waste of time. Fifteen feet by ten feet; that might not even qualify for the “postage stamp” designation. Best to stop fooling around, turn it into a big flower bed, and visit the middle school campus next door if we want to know what grass looks like.

2. I don’t get raking. Dead grass clippings on top of live grass–big deal. Does it pose a threat? Do dead leaves pose a threat? ‘Cause some of them are still around from last year; I think they’ve mulched quite nicely. Ain’t it all nature? Besides–if I rake our “yard,” all the crap in the neighbors’ yards will just blow over and nullify my work.

3. All that being said, I miss having a yard. And a house not connected to other houses. And non-insane traffic. And living in a state instead of a commonwealth.

4. I don’t get commonwealths, either.

“Congratulations! The Virginia taxing authority has accepted your state tax return.”

Uhh…great.

Thanks.

“Congratulations!”?

Really? Congratulations are in order for successfully filling out a tax return? Should I have prepared some sort of speech to mark the momentous occasion? “I’d like to thank the fine folks at H&R Block for their hard work, also Governor Tim Kaine and his cabinet–especially Finance Secretary Jody Wagner. Jody, whenever I thought it couldn’t be done, there you were right by my side to encourage me and help me get through it. Couldn’t have done it without you. And what can I say about my good friend the Commissioner of the Department of Taxation, Janie Bowen…. You said it best, Janie: ‘Filing tax returns electronically makes good sense for Virginians and saves the Commonwealth money.’ Now who could disagree with that? Janie, you’re a class act from the word ‘go.’ Thanks for what you’re doing there in Richmond.”

(Cue cutoff music.)

I always choose the overpriced Ultimate Car Wash option at the gas station because it feels good to type in the code at the car wash entrance and see “YOU HAVE THE BEST WASH MONEY CAN BUY” on the little screen.

The BEST WASH MONEY CAN BUY. Can’t beat that.

1. Easter back home in Ohio: highly recommended. Also too brief. Also a bit misunderstood: at a familial gathering, I made reference to “being in the minority”–by which I meant working for a Republican under the Democrat majority in Congress. It was interpreted as being a white feller in the District of Columbia. Not what I meant.

2. The national anthem of North Korea, I must say, is a stately little tune.

3. My office compatriots and I are due at the White House tomorrow for a West Wing tour. I’m wavering on my desire for one; will have to be at work tomorrow earlier than I got out of bed this morning. Sleep is my friend. And it always takes me a few days to get back into the congressional grind after even just 46 hours in the sanity and serenity that is Ohio. Sleep–and the resulting lateness for work–is my preferred form of protest at having to leave home after so short a time.

4. Why, oh why, oh why-o…why did I ever leave Ohio?

5. I have yet to do my taxes. Not a smart or responsible thing, since the Man owes me money. I blame this on the congressional grind as well: if it’s not due in the next four hours, keep it off my plate.

6. There is no sixth item on this Random Nonsense list.

7. Why did I wander to find what lies yonder, when lif e was so cozy at home?

8. The national anthem of the Netherlands is also impressive.

9. I end up reading Exodus about once a year, for whatever reason, but can’t get my head wrapped around the Tabernacle construction just from the reading. I have to look at a picture while I’m reading. The Tabernacle construction bit is one of the most confusing parts of the Old Testament to me.

10. That, and “Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord–therefore it is said: ‘Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.’” I take it that “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord” was a popular expression back in the day, and one day someone asked, “Hey–where did that expression come from, anyway?” and someone else answered, “Well, there was this guy named Nimrod, and he was a mighty hunter before the Lord. And that’s where that comes from.”

11. Wond’rin’ why I wander–why did I fly, why did I roam?

12. That Nimrod bit was funnier in my head.

13. It was funny back in college.

14. It was funny in the same way that Tony Trabert was funny one day in his U.S. Open coverage, when he helpfully explained that “if your opponent is serving and you break his serve, you’re said to have broken his serve.”

15. “Bruce Sutter has been around for a while, and he’s pretty old. He’s 35 years old. That will give you some idea of how old he is.”–Ron Fairly.

16. Oh why, oh why-o did I leave Ohio? Maybe I’d better go home.

1. What’s with all the bitching about the new passport requirement for Canada, Mexico, et al? You’re traveling to a foreign land–why exactly would you not need a passport? Who cares what the rules were in the past?

2. The next episode up on my “Dallas” Season Six DVD set is the one where Rebecca Wentworth dies in a plane crash. I think I cried when that first aired–1983. I was ten. I was an odd child–still am.

2.5. “Wentworth Tool and Die” is still one of the best fictional company names ever.

William Henry Harrison died on April 4. And Martin Luther King, Junior, too–not trying to slight anyone. But it’s too easy to recall Harrison’s end days: sworn in on March 4, died a month later when Henry Clay chopped off his head with Tecumseh’s battle axe. Or something like that.

April 4 and still no daily journal prompt-type thing. And it turns out I wasn’t doing March 29’s prompt yesterday: it was March 28’s. I’m just pedantic enough for that to be a big deal. So back to March 29’s: “You remind me of.”

There is no “you” here to remind me of anyone/anything right now. 7:20 PM and still at work, mostly to avoid the pink tree gawker traffic that irritated me yesterday.

They’re just pink trees, for pete’s sake. Not that I’m jaded again today.

Also I’m still at work because the stuff I’m doing now I can do either place: the blogification and the journalizing and the whatnot. That’s not entirely good. Being at the computer all day at work and then a few more hours at home has indeed helped both my work writing and my personal writing, but I haven’t yet developed a reliable system for not wasting so much time online. You know, something like reminding myself that I’m an adult by saying, “Hey, Dumbass–cut back on the looking up of random William Henry Harrison facts and finish that letter on the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program.”

Eh. Maybe I’m grousing for nothing. I got the letter done and sent off to every fire chief in our congressional district. And I found out that, back in the day, only tall Ohioans like William Henry Harrison were called “Buckeyes.” Now the term refers to any ol’ clown from Ohio–including me.

I remind me of a guy who piled up a big stack o’ crapola on his desk on Friday, declaring that this week’s congressional recess would afford him time to clean it up. Hain’t happened yet. But I did get those fire chief letters out! I’ll hang my hat on that today and call ‘er a win.

I’m not blogificationizing like I should. I’m not blogificationizing like someone who has a lot of pent-up writingification to do. Which is what I say I have pent up. Inside.

2007 has seen the return of my Sequence-style LifePlanning™, which mostly means I create a list of things to do within a certain period of time and then neglect to do those things, pushing them off into the next sequence. We are now in Sequence VII. Not 7, but VII. Because not doing things is always more impressive when there’s a Roman numeral involved.

I signed up for a daily journal prompt via e-mail to encourage my blogging/journaling in general. Did that on Saturday or Sunday; haven’t seen a writing prompt since. So on April 1 I did the prompt for March 31, and yesterday I did the March 30 prompt whilst sitting in the courtyard of the Rayburn House Office Building during our fire drill. Thought about doing that again today; maybe tomorrow.

But for today, which is where we are right now, I still lack a today prompt. That means it’s time for March 29’s “Three months into 2007 and I have/haven’t.”

Have/haven’t? Is that like the “he/she” construction that respectable folk have stopped using? Have/haven’t?

I’m not as funny at 11:15 PM as I used to be. Lousy Daylight Saving Time.

Maybe I’m just jaded after eight years–and eight Cherry Blossom seasons–in Washington, and maybe I’m just mad about tonight’s extra-lengthy commute home…but I just can’t understand the throngs of people who come here to look at a buncha pink trees.

They’re just pink trees. Sure, they’re purty, but they’re just pink trees.

And you’re clogging my intersections when I’m trying to go home after a long day.

I hain’t been blogging much. Nancy Pelosi has the House working hard after twelve years of corruption and do-nothingness and graft and semi-legalized theivery and whatnot. I’m all tuckered out at nights from all the legislatin’ she has them doing. Solid, meaningful legislatin’ like Sense of the Congress resolutions that die in the Senate.

What’s been the most fun is watching Steny Hoyer navigate his way in the New World Order. He knows what every thinking person knows: he should be the Speaker, and would be a far better and more effective Speaker than the current Speakerette. To fulfill his party’s promise of a more open House, he knew that the Republicans should get either an opportunity to amend the Democrat Iraq resolution or the possibility of referring it to committee. He said as much. Then the word came down from on high that the Speakerette wanted a “clean” vote, so he got stuffed.

The Republicans have a slim chance at regaining a majority in the House in 2008. We would have no chance under Speaker Hoyer; he could cement a solid majority of 230 to 240 members and retain control for a decade or more. Speaker Pelosi, though, is the Republicans’ best ally in the quest to make this a short exile from legislative power.

Once again the new year rings in when I’m not ready for it; I wrote to Nancy Pelosi to demand that the continuing resolution we passed be deemed to have included an extension of 2006. She must not have the power to do that. Saint Barack Obama would!

I have a book list of sorts for 2007, but it’s rather a joke…. My church led a “66 in ‘06″ program last year, publishing reading plans for getting through all 66 books of the Bible in 2006. I got through Leviticus 6 myself. Maybe this year.

But being a smart ass, I wondered if there’s any way I could tackle 77 book-type books in 2007. Obviously the answer is no, as it just took me 2 hours to read 20 pages of Heretics of Dune (although I maintain that Frank Herbert is either the most brilliant writer of his genre in the history of the written word or he was perpertually high). But wouldn’t it be interesting to at least set forth a list of 77 books for the year and see what I do with them?

Then I figured I should give myself some leeway: 77 slots on my list, but only fill 70 of them. Certainly I will purchase books this year with every intention of reading them immediately; I think some are already on the way from Amazon. So there will be 77 slots. Maybe I’ll fill them all in time; maybe some of them will always be empty. Like the Order of the Garter, limited to 77 (or 25 or whatever that is). Not so much like the Order of the Garter. Who cares. It’s my list, and there will be 77 slots. Like the 77 elders of the whoever in the Bible. Or not. Whatever analogy works best, that’s what it will be like.

Perhaps it will be a perpetual list, instead of something I revise each year. Revisions will be constant. If so, then I should pick a number that means something to me; 77 ain’t it. Maybe an even 100. Or an odd 100. Five is my number, but 55 is too few and it doesn’t mean anything to me anyway.

Oh–revisions will be constant. I’ve already tossed out the C.S. Lewis daily devotional in favor of another one (the one I could find today and read while it’s still January 01). But herein follows the list as it stood when Nancy Pelosi refused to stop the calendar at the start of this new year:

• The Message Remix (The Bible in Contemporary Language)
• Heretics of Dune
• Risk: Are You Willing to Trust God with Everything?
• Do What You Are
• Prayer: Too Busy Not to Pray
• Ordering Your Private World
• 12 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee (Like Me)
• Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties And Thirties
• The Constitution of the United States
• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• Living Simply Through the Day: Spiritual Survival in a Complex Age
• The Path: Creating Your Mission Statement for Work and for Life
• Robert’s Rules of Writing
• Spiritual Journaling: Recording Your Journey Toward God
• Circumstances Beyond Our Control: Poems
• Page After Page
• Freedom from the Tyranny of the Urgent
• The Lost Gospel Q: The Original Sayings of Jesus
• All the King’s Men
• Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome
• The Hobbit or There and Back Again
• The Rule of Saint Benedict
• How to Say It
• The House: The History of the House of Representatives
• The Silver Chair
• When God Whispers Your Name
• A Year with C. S. Lewis
• The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?
• Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts
• The Last Jihad
• Latin: An Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors
• What’s the Matter With Kansas?
• Make a Life, Not Just a Living
• The Abolition of Man
• The Trial
• Paul: The Mind of the Apostle
• The Fountainhead
• Pontius Pilate: The Biography of an Invented Man
• The Satanic Verses: A Novel
• Banish Your Belly
• The Iliad
• The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
• Becoming A Person Of Influence
• The Pilgrim’s Progress
• The 10 Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make
• Financial Freedom: Seven Secrets to Reduce Financial Worry
• Your Personality Tree
• The Great War: American Front
• Catch-22
• Strange Pilgrims
• Absalom, Absalom!
• The Man Without a Country & Other Stories
• The Loom of Language
• The Relativity of Wrong
• The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto
• The Autumn of the Patriarch
• Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds
• Dollars & $ense: A Christian Guide To Financial Planning
• Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities
• Jesus on Money: Book 1–Charting a New Course
• The 9/11 Commission Report
• Beyond Shyness: How to Conquer Social Anxieties
• John Adams
• The Real Jimmy Carter
• Captains and the Kings
• The Art of War
• The Sibling Society
• Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
• Nothing’s Too Small to Make a Difference
• Ulysses

I saw Bobby today; thought it was fine. Not tremendous, exactly, but interesting. Martin Sheen is always good (if one defines "always" as "in everything other than Gettysburg") and was skillfully matched with Helen Hunt. They did a decent job of fleshing out the Anthony Hopkins character but I still wanted more. Maybe more of him and less of Harry Belafonte; his presence made little sense to me. And he’s off the deep end of the Lunatic Left, which I can’t put out of my mind when I see him. Martin Sheen’s politics can at least be categorized as that of a sane man; maybe it’s fitting that ol’ Harry was playing an addled dodderer.

///

Next time my neighbor lets her dog out and stands at the door saying "Go peepee! Go peepee! Go peepee!" in that damnable high-pitched voice, I’m going outside to tinkle on her lawn. If there’s any chance it would get her to shut it, it would be worth the indecency charge.

///

I ordered a new Lamy fountain pen today, neglecting to notice I was ordering from the same outfit that forgot to send me my Lamy ink the first time I ordered a pen from there. And then forgot to tell them they forgot to send me my Lamy ink the first time I ordered a pen from there. So we shall see.

///

Something happened on 02 December in the familial past that escapes me…. Did my grandmother die on 02 December? I think it was 01 December. You’d think there’d be something here at the house that I could look at to see, but I never fully dove into the family tree business as I should have. I just looked online, searching for my grandmother’s full name to see if it was yesterday or today, and the only result that comes up is my dad’s obituary, which I happened to write.

///

I also installed "light-filtering mini blinds" (so it says on the box) on one of my windows today–after nearly eight years of living life here. That seems too trivial to mention after thinking about family stuff as I have been for the last several minutes, but it was a part of today. And it was a part of today that will have to be dealt with tomorrow as well: the blind is too narrow. I wasn’t sure how it would look–these window frames are oddly shaped–so I need to go back tomorrow and buy wider blinds–two this time for two windows. And if I get ambitious, two more for two more windows.