The Neon Nurse's Charting

From today's online version of the Lamar Daily Snooze:

12:20 p.m. Littering - Officer responded to the 200 block of East Parkway Street on a report of littering. Upon arrival officers were unable to locate the vehicle. The officer removed a bowl of salad from the street.

7:30 a.m. Animal problem - Deputy Nordyke was dispatched to the 27000 block of Ridgeview on the report of a cow in the yard. Upon arrival the cow was gone.

***

This is my town. We sleep soundly here.

Oh, and the Betty Boop cups? Going to Norway for $51!

I told you how the day was going to go, didn't I?

At the vet, they sedated Souvy, but then discovered that he seems to have an undescended testicle. So rather than do one now and one later, they decided to wait a while, rather that do a riskier and more expensive venture in through the abdominal wall.

So they called me to come fetch him home. I had meant to bring a towel to wrap him in, but I got a phone call (charity solicitation) JUST as I was going out the door, so I forgot. Of course, as sometimes happens the sedative had caused his bladder muscles to relax. So the vet handed me a nice, soggy, groggy, odoriferous kitty who pitifully cuddled up to me and soaked my favorite shirt.

At least I had a pad in the car so he didn't yuck up the seat on the ride home.

Also on the semi-plus side, going to get him didn't interfere with the delivery of the dryer, because those guys had a flat on the way here, which delayed all their stops. (And the installation actually went just fine. Although I haven't tried to USE the dryer yet....)

While I was sort of standing around so I could be available and helpful to the Sears guys if need be, I remembered I had not yet turned back the clock that is very high up on the bathroom wall. When I went to do that, I found a surprise visitor! A wasp! Hiding behind the clock!

I didn't get stung, but when I lurched back in shock the toilet seat lid shifted and I think I wrenched my back a little trying not to fall.

But the day is not a TOTAL waste. I am very much enjoying watching the ending of one of our eBay auctions, for some old Betty Boop paper cups and napkins, which is currently at the insane bidding price of $33.89.

Guess while I am waiting for it to end I will go wash a load of laundry, and maybe the cat.

My costume today should be a chicken with its head cut off, because that's what I am going to be running around like.

Souvy has his vet appointment at 9:30 (and then I will have to pick him up again this afternoon). They are supposed to be bringing the new dryer today (and what are the chances of THAT going smoothly?). Need to root around in various stashes to see if we have everything needed to make Mike a bat costume. And then just all the Stuff of a normal day added on for the fun.

At least it was easy to decide what to upload for Tune Tuesday!

Nightmare Before Christmas - This is Halloween
http://download.yousendit.com/4F03643B0668271A

I have a new keyboard. It is very clicky. I'm kind of old fashioned, though, and like a nice, crisp clicky sound when I type, so that's okay.

The reason I have it is because of our darling pesty boy Souvenir. When I was away from my computer spot for a minute last night, he decided to help himself to my glass of water...and you can guess the rest.

I'm making progress on the catching up of assorted replies, in between trying to re-derange parts of the house. We have actually uncovered the treadmill!! Although I don't think I need it, since I get plenty of exercise flinging heavy things about. Saturday, Caro and I wrestled the defunct dryer outside so there will be a space for the new baby, which is to be delivered Tuesday. What a nice trick or treat!

My challenge for next week is to make Mike a costume for a post-Halloween costume party at his middle school. He wanted to be a beaver, but Caro and I were worried that this would be too much temptation for his classmates, considering the usual level of humor at that age. So far we haven't thought of any good alternatives. But it isn't until Thursday, so we have some time.

Whew! When I said Wednesday wasn't looking too good for email catch-up, I WAS RIGHT!

Caro had an early meeting, so I had to get up at 6am to do the getting the boy off to school thing. Sat down at the computer and found out, YIKES! EBay is having a special price listing day TODAY!

So that shot Wednesday all to hell.

I was able to switch most things on my to-do list over to Thursday, but I did have to go to town for Mike's library day, and I had also promised to print out and put up a few flyers because Governatorial Candidate Bill Ritter was coming to town Thursday morning. After running those errands, I glued myself back down to the computer chair. Ended the day with what is probably a personal best for one day of listings, 228! We have already sold a few things and gotten a few bids, which is good, because Souvenir needs to have a visit to good old Dr. Eaton RealSoonNow.

Got up early again today so I could attend the Ritter speech and help add to the support numbers. Ran into a spot of trouble when I realized that after I printed up the flyers, I threw the email AWAY, so now I didn't have the details anymore. Dur!

Happily, I had saved a phone message with the time, so was half-way there. I thought about stopping at one of the grocery stores where I had put up a flyer, but succumbed to Lamar Syndrome, which means I figured I would see the special painted tour bus and the crowd and know from that where I should be.

So I parked at Lamar Community College and...saw nothing. While I stood there on the sidewalk thinking, here came Eddie Hall, a candidate for County Commissioner. "Hey, Eddie, where's the meeting?" I called happily.

"Dunno. I was going to follow you."

So we BOTH stood there on the sidewalk, trying to jog each other's memory, when a car pulled up. The lady in it asked where the MumbleSomething Hall was. She was with the Ritter campaign...and didn't know where to go. Thought she could ask/follow us....

So all three of us were pondering what to do next, when here came Russ Baldwin from KVAY to cover the speech. We looked hopeful and asked him where HE thought it was...and again, he was expecting to join our little band and come along to the coffee and sweet rolls and politickin'.

After one false start, we found it. It was NOT in the big Lecture Hall, but there WAS a janitorial staff lady working that area, who DID know the Sekrit Location and kindly revealed it to us! "OH," we all said when we finally arrived. "Why did they not SAY it was in the room where the college bookstore used to be???"

It had started to rain a little as we finally went into the right building. Bill Ritter deliberately did NOT tell a joke about bringing the rain with him, because when he had done that in Trinidad a few weeks past, lightning immediately hit the building. He learns quick, our Mr. Ritter.

By the time the meeting was over, a very damp failed-blizzard was pouring down from the sky. (We have over 2 inches so far, which is about 1/6 of our normal precip for the YEAR.) I got very very wet going back to my car, and probably looked pretty weird drying my face and hair with Kleenex. I was very glad to get home to my warm house and eat my warm lunch and read my warm email. But just as I was getting ready to get to work filling orders--THE POWER WENT OUT!

So I was forced to go take a nap.

We got powered back up again about two hours after the folks in town. Not that I was bitter. Or cold again. And now that we are finally all fed, and the sudden leaks have been dealt with, and I am all chipper from my nap, I can MAYBE get a LITTLE emailing and replying done!

I had high hopes for today being a good email catch-up day, even though I had to go to Mike's IEP meeting at school. After which I took him out and had him shot! Ha-ha, and me too! FLU shots! Arr-arr!

But, while I did get quite a bit of things done that needed doing, I never did get to sit down and just answer email. And I have to say tomorrow is not looking that good for it either. Thursday might be okay, if the blizzard we are under watch for doesn't knock our power out....

On the plus side, I have remembered ON TIME that it is Tune Tuesday. Here is a classic you may remember, Jim Stafford singing "Cow Patti".

http://download.yousendit.com/CB4598E115C55B23

Finally, for those who are interested in Lois McMaster Bujold's writing, my thoughts on her latest book. (If you aren't interested, you can consider the post done now. :} )

First off, I should say that expecting each new book to be better than the last is unfair to authors. I don't see how any writer could keep doing that forever. It's just not humanly possible.

I don't even think it's reasonable to expect that a writer capable of producing great books do so every time. For one thing, the reader's personal taste is going to come into play, and one fan's GREAT! is another fan's Meh.

Having said that, however, I think that whoever decided to issue Lois Bujold's The Sharing Knife: Beguilement as a stand-alone book did it a great disservice, and Lois too. Because, in my opinion, the sequel/second book is going to have to be another outstanding one to justify the lukewarm first half.

I can best explain what I mean by comparing SK Part 1 to another book of Lois's that got the same treatment. As you probably know, her first book accepted for publication was considered too big, so they turned the first half into Shards of Honor. (And the rest is /future/ history) Later on she worked up the second half into its own novel, Barrayar.

The reason it worked fine for Shards and not so fine for SK1 is that Shards was, well, ABOUT something. In Shards, Aral and Cordelia are on opposite sides of a war. Even though being thrown together makes them fall in love, they canNOT do what their hearts want without tossing loyalty to their own people right out the window. (A theme Lois comes back to quite often in other books.) The fact neither of them would do such a thing gets the reader involved and rooting for them, hoping the author can pull it off to get them together in the end without letting either of them compromise their moral values.

Warning! Spoiler Alert!

On the other hand, Dag and Fawn from SK1 (though very likable characters in their own right) are from cultures that...rub along together tolerably in their universe, despite a tendency towards prejudice on both sides. The only thing keeping the two new characters apart other than 's/he's Not Our Kind, dear ' is that Dag reacted to losing a hand and a wife by becoming a workaholic and shutting himself off from anything at all in life beyond mild friendship. And that lasts, what, a week, week and a half?, before he and Dawn (18, with self-esteem issues) yield to the inevitable.

After that, the main problem to be solved (in THIS book) seems to be to get Dawn's bucolic yahoo family to agree to let her marry Dag. And all that that entails is told very well, with sexy bits and exciting bits and funny bits--Lois is too good a writer for it not to be a good read. But...maybe it's me -- I can't find much meat on the bone of the underlying theme here. There's no great cause (yet) and except for a confrontation between Sunny (Fawn's mean and nasty former crush object) and Dag, no big crisis. The book is pure, plain and simple about two people falling in love. (Anyone reading this far who thinks I've totally missed the Theme is genuinely begged to point it out to me, so I can smack myself in the head and say "OH!")

I'm hoping book 2 will be the one with the theme and then some; that it will be as powerful as Curse of Chalion or Paladin of Souls or any of Lois's other top-drawer novels. If not, I will still have bought it, and no doubt I will enjoy it. But I have to be honest here...if The Sharing Knife Part 1 was fanfic, it would go in the category labeled Fluff.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Unless you were expecting Another Great Novel instead.

I spent a lot of yesterday taking pictures of things that will be going up on eBay, then cropping the pics and doing all the other stuff required to let people get a fair look at what they are (hopefully) bidding on. Between us, Caro and I got a lot done, and I was tired but happy. Went to lay down and rest and finish The Sharing Knife (more on which later), which was the cue, of course, for Something to Go Wrong.

Caro tried to start the dryer, which has been acting FINE, but instead of whirring into action, it made a terrible GRINDING sound. And when I tried it myself, it did it again!

So today I got to dismantle the dryer on top of my other tasks of mailing a boatload of books to people. (So my back keeps trying to spasm up tonight, go figure.) The tub turns freely by hand, and there is no sign of a short in the upper wiring harness. What I am thinking, after a little Googling, is that the bearings went out in the motor.

Considering I can remember at least three major repairs to the dryer in the last five years or so, and that it is probably 10-12 years old, Caro and I decided we might as well bite the bullet and buy a new one. Unfortunately that unleashes a whole new can of worms. Of the three appliance dealers in town, two are owned by homophobe jerks we Do Not Care To Do Business With, and the third follows the Lamar rule of way over-pricing their products Because They Think They Can.

Which leaves the Sears in La Junta. Which only sends delivery trucks to Lamar twice a month. Sadly they are still looking like the most workable option right now.

Also I have an earache.

But Caro came home from school and made some quite nice lemon chicken, and I lay down on my back massaging futon for an hour or so afterwards, and THEN we watched the new episode of Heroes, so I am feeling much better, and looking forward to tomorrow being another day!

Friday was post-free for me because I indulged in a special holiday. First I drove up the road to Las Animas, to attend their library sale. Then I had the treat of meeting my friend Jennifer from Denver and showing her all the amazing sights of Lamar. She had an assignment to update the archives at Metro State in Denver for the National Civic League (or something like that) who select the All-American City awards every year. Lamar got the nod in 1959, so she was checking to see what was new and exciting since then. (Yes there was too something!! Well, a few things....)

We had a great time driving around and chatting. Not only is it fun to get to show off your town to someone who is actually interested, but Jennifer is just a fun person to hang out with!

Today has been pretty productive, except it proves I have a strange definition of productivity. I got all the books from the Las Animas sale sorted (list online, list on eBay, list some time in the future maybe, donate back to library sale), plus the four boxes that had still been sitting in my car since the LAMAR library sale three weeks ago), decluttered the laundry room enough to reach the access door to the furnace and light the pilot light, went out to a lovely birthday meal with the clone, repaired the power connection on Mike's train, listed some books on eBay and then helped Mike assemble a bunch of little plastic signs and telephone poles that go with his train set.

Basically, more fun than should be legal.

I just started chapter 9. Which goes like this.

"Impotence is frustrating.

I don't mean physical impotence, although that, too, must be exasperating. My current frustration stemmed from my impotence to get on with my investigations into (...'s) death. I needed some Viagra for the mind."

Dick Francis is writing about Viagra. o.0

This makes me think an earlier passage, which I thought was an unintended entendre, MIGHT have been slipped in (as it were) deliberately!!

This was it (Sid Halley is talking about his artificial hand):

"A couple of pounds of steel and plastic was definitely not an aid to romance."

I read that and thought, 'Honey, you just don't know where to SHOP.' But now...I dunno.

Things that make you go hmmm, Take 2.

I only got a smidgen of lolling about done yesterday, despite my good intentions. *sigh*

Then the clone scared me later in the day. While Mike and I were out running errands, she came home and started the oven pre-heating for dinner, before SHE had to zip back to town for a Friends of the Library meeting.

So I come in laden down with groceries and start putting them away and suddenly realize OMGWTFBBQ!!11! the OVEN is on! Did I bump it on sometime today and not notice?? Has it gone Bad and Evol and begun to plot burning the house down around us while we sleep?????

Then I found her note saying the WTFBBQ chicken wings were in the fridge waiting to be cooked, if I wanted to start them. So that was okay.

Today I caught up quite a bit of email and such, and also read some of my first birthday book, the Dick Francis. It is called "Under Orders", and so far (eight chapters) it looks like the rumor that his deceased wife Mary did most of the writing is wrong...unless she wrote all this years ago or something. Doesn't read like that, though. The voice seems right to me, and the plotting is classic DF. (I'm reading along as the story commences and saying, "Ok, YOU'RE dead and YOU'RE dead and YOU are probably in cahoots with the bad guy....")

What is weird is seeing the mention of Google and web sites in a Dick Francis story! What's next, a Wikipedia entry for Sid Halley? I have to admit I geekily checked out the one mentioned (part of the plot), www.make-a-wager.com. It's just a placeholder search and ad site, but I looked it up and if I am not mistaken one of the owners is named Felix, which is the name of his son and beta reader/researcher. One of those things that makes you go hmmm.

Another thing that hasn't changed is that the man cannot write a decent love scene to save his life. Although it has actually become sort of an endearing trait, and if he was suddenly writing genuinely hot scenes, THEN I would think someone was co-writing with him.

But PLEASE, Mr. Francis. You are 86. I would really like it if you didn't try to get all modern and with it and write about "nookie".

It's like hearing such things from one's grandpa. *squick-shudder*

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I plan to be doing as much as possible of THIS:



(Except tomorrow besides my laptop I also have the new Dick Francis and Lois McMaster Bujold to read!)

I went to lay down for a bit last Sunday and read my LJ on the laptop while I rested my legs. After a while, I noticed that ALL FIVE of our pets had decided I was the Smottest Gurl Wuld and my fine example should be followed.

Painty is not in the picture, because when I hollered for Mike to bring the camera, it startled her and she ran to hide. She had been on my pillow just above my head, though, so she might not have showed in the picture anyway. The circle of spotty fur at my left hand is Climber. Then Cowboy, then Souvy between my ankles, and Tiger Jenny perched on the edge.

You might notice Souvy is getting pretty big for a 5 1/2 month old cat. (He is just starting to get his canines, so I think my estimate of age when we found him was pretty close.) His growth rate is slowing down now, so that his fur is starting to get a chance to catch up. Long fur and kitten clumsies can make for amusing incidents. The other day he was grooming himself, trying to lick the ruff under his neck, which is very thick and fluffy. His raspy little tongue got STUCK in the fur, and I could not help him get loose, because I was laughing too hard at the faces he was making....

I have been trying to rest a little more, and I have also gotten the bright idea to try charting my day and see if I can spot a pattern in what is making me feel crummy on a recurring basis. Don't worry, I know it's boring, so I won't be posting that here!

At the moment it is still Tuesday, and so I will post a Tune! Two, actually, since I messed up and sent the last one JUST as it was about to go stale. Therefore, here's a second chance at Peter, Paul and Mary doing "I Have A Song to Sing-O!" by Gilbert and Sullivan.

http://www.yousendit.com/download/eG36qOw8p3k%3D

This is a good one to start off my next year:

Jefferson Starship - Lightning Rose

http://download.yousendit.com/0EDD7F2A5FA4346D

"Carry the fire to the heart of the darkness,
Carry the fire each and every one,
Carry the fire, in your hands if you need to...."

Let's do it.

I sure wish I knew what to do about being on this Wellness See-saw. I start feeling better, so I try to catch up, and then I start feeling rotten again. But no symptoms good enough to take to the doc, you know? I mean, not unless I want to be called a big giant whiner....

Oh well. So, not a very eventful week. The big news for Lamar is that Oprah drove through on her vacation and dissed the town and area on her website. OK, yeah, the Cow Palace is a fancy dive, but that's what she gets for picking the biggest motel instead of scoping them out a little first. In other shocking news, feedlots don't smell good. (Ya THINK, city girl? I bet I could find a spot or two in Chicago that ain't exactly springtime fresh, either.)

Mike scored big time this week. I don't remember if I mentioned that at one of the auctions we went to this summer (the one where it was still 105 at 5:30 pm!) we won a boxful of old model train parts. Probably from the 40s or 50s, I'm guessing. Mike had a good time laying out the tracks and pushing them around in the dirt while we were there, but once we got home he wanted to plug them in and make them GO. And sadly, that was beyond my scope of practice. But where I was right up to the mark was in knowing that when you have a specialty collectors' item, you go see the FAN.

There's a guy in our town, retired (but he heads up the volunteer fire department), who has a nice little model train shop. We showed him what we had, and I asked him if he could find a buyer, then give us a percentage of what he got in store credit. This sounded like a plan to him.

So he finally tracked down a buyer, and on Wednesday Mike took delivery on a pretty nice little beginners' hobby set, a Santa Fe engine with four or five cars and a caboose, and a lot of little fiddly bits like signs you have to cut off the plastic struts and glue together and OMG kill me now....

Mike and I had a talk about how expensive this train was, and how he needed to be very careful with it. He swore he would, in his exact words, "treat it like a child." Unfortunately, I assumed too much in regards to his track assembly skills. Also, my idea of being careful is to treat a delicate object like it was made of spun glass, and his seems to stop right after "don't take an axe to it." So we learned the hard way that there are these teeny little copper fittings on the ends of the metal rails in the track, and if you don't take them apart JUST like the instructions say, those teeny bits go sproinging off, and then the train don't go.

Luckily the train shop guy sells spare track pieces, and the railroad has run successfully all weekend.

We got through the week without having to light the pilot on the heater, but I think we may have to sometime in the coming week.

I missed Tune Tuesday again, and I even had a download link I could have used, since I had put it up for someone else by request. So before it goes stale I will put it here. If you want a copy of Peter, Paul and Mary doing the Gilbert and Sullivan classic, "I Have a Song to Sing-O", here it is!

http://www.yousendit.com/download/BUhppCIeBIc%3D

I DID get a lot done the past few days, and some of it was even stuff I was SUPPOSED to be doing. But there were other times, like late at night, when I was not sleepy enough to go to bed yet, but too tired to concentrate on doing anything USEFUL.

That's when I go surfing around and find out stuff like this.

My crazed ex, Bob L'Aloge wrote himself a Wikipedia entry. (I am struggling mightily to stay on the high road and not go edit it.)

Susan Crites was in the news last month. Got arrested and perp walked with the jacket over the handcuffs and everything! Happily, it wasn't me. It was the Susan Crites who has written a bunch of self-published books on ghosts. Seems she was treating (with counseling and possibly some kind of prescribing) a woman in her paranormal group for psychosomatic pain which turned out to be an actual tumor. Except the other Susan C turned out NOT to be an actual doctor and/or psych person. So she is in big trouble.

Also, some people who this same Susan C kicked out of her paranormal group (lucky for them, sounds like!) started their own group on Yahoo called The West Virginia Society of Paranormal Enthusiasts that Susan Crites Doesn't Trust.

I'm kind of glad to learn this, as it means I am NOT the weirdest Susan Crites there is. (So there's still room for improvement.)

Probably the one that gave me the most pause, though, was something I found on RootsWeb (again from the Googling). There was this guy named Joshua Wall, probably born in the early 1800s. So first he marries Susan Crites. Then something happens which puts him in need of another wife. So THEN he marries someone with the EXACT same name as the clone!!!

Freaky coincidence, huh?

Today I was trying to work on photo stuff, because I am way behind on both photo essays and projects I have promised other people. But instead I got sucked into working on something else, due to reading about Daddy Bush speaking at a fundraiser yesterday. He said if we have some of these -quote - "wild Democrats in charge of these committees, it will be a ghastly thing for our country."

Hey, count me as a Wild Thing, baby!



No, I am not a professional artist and I don't even play one on TV. But I liked how this came out well enough to make a button of it! If you want to make one too, go to this link and grab the higher resolution art.

http://neonnurse.net/Blogs/wildprint.jpg

I should be in bed.



I was just about recovered from the wild fandangos of the recent Candidate Party/Library Book Sale/Massive Catch-up Action with Kung-Fu Grip Days. But TODAY was the END of the LIbrary book sale, where books are $2 a bag. That means that all the ones I was not sure enough about to pay $1 each (50 cents for paperbacks) for on Sunday could now go home with me for less than a quarter. Since Mike was in school I had to tote all the books to fill eight boxes, and then the boxes of books themselves, all on my own.

Ow.

That means even with TRYING to catch up on email and comments, I am WAY more behind than when I started. It's really not that fair.

I remembered two of the things I was going to post about last week, though. Things that illustrate why I should not complain when other people make little mistakes....

Back in July, I sold a $5 book on eBay. What with one thing and another, I didn't pay too much attention when I didn't hear from the buyer. In August I did, though. He emailed basically saying, "Hey, where's my book?" I emailed back basically saying, "Hey, where's my dough?"

He said he had sent it, right away. I didn't get it? No, I hadn't, but I asked if he had the receipt. Oops, he just recently threw that away. Guess he knew that sounded lame, because he just offered to send another one. He did, and I sent his book. All was well.

But you KNOW what happened next, right? While I was moving stuff around sorting books last week, I found a plastic bag with some mail in it. Mike had fetched it one day but set the bag down near one of the many teetering towers of boxed books 'n stuff, and it must have slipped down behind.

It was all junk mail...except for my poor buyer's original money order. :/ At least he accepted my profuse apology graciously.

The other thing I finished resolving today. Remember me complaining because even after I bought a new battery, my riding lawn mower refused to start? This was sometime towards the beginning of September. I had called the shop and they had promised to come get it to fix it.

I waited and waited, and finally called them about 2 weeks ago to see if they had forgotten me. I talked to the shop owner, not the actual repair guy this time. He assured me I was NOT forgotten, they had just been really swamped, and as soon as my name came to the top of the list, they would come for my giant non-lawn-cutting paperweight.

So on Monday, Actual Repair Guy calls me. Had I tried my mower yet? Because they had replaced the bad battery cables and brought it back...on the 15th. He THOUGHT he had put it in a different spot, and there was a repair ticket with the amount owed stuck in it somewhere.

Yeah, that means any time in the last three weeks I COULD have cut down the chest high weeds in what passes for our yard, had I been slightly more alert and aware.

I'm not sure what the point is of slowly getting my body more up to speed if that makes my brain think IT is now free to head off on vacation.

I keep planning to get back to doing Tune Tuesday, but I never seem to remember until AFTER another Tuesday has passed. But tonight I remembered!

This one is "Hang 'Em All" by Tom T. Hall, and I thought it kind of went with last week's ghastly vote in Congress to basically throw the legal safeguards from the Bill of Rights that protect you, and me, and all of us, right out the window, on the pretext this somehow will make us safer....

The song features a guy pointing a finger and complaining about various crimes and bad things going on in his town. He thinks, "If you hang 'em all, you get the guilty." But in the final verse, the song warns:

"If they hang 'em all, they get the guilty.
That's what you say we ought to do.
If they hang 'em all they get the guilty,
but remember they're gonna hang you too."

http://www.yousendit.com/download/gMOdExgPYZc%3D

So long as I'm posting, I might as well catch up on the picspam too. This is another one of the photos my mom sent me a scan of. As you may (or may not) recall, in 1961 the hosts of a Denver kids' TV show, Fred and Fae, decided to have some fun spoofing the Miss America craze, and put on a "Little Miss" pageant. I won the Little Miss Thornton contest. My talent was a stand-up comedy routine (written by my mom) where I talked to my pet rat Odie.



This picture was taken by a photographer from Life magazine, who they sent out to cover the pageant because it seems to have been the first time anyone had put one on. Unfortunately, something newsy happened the week the pics were scheduled to run, and the story was never actually run. But the editor was nice enough to send my mom a bunch of the pictures that had me in them, and a lot of slides the guy came to our house to take as well. Something about a little girl and her pet rat just intrigued him!

I have survived the Week of Crumminess and also the weekend of Too Much Fun. Thought I would hit the high spots to aid with the general catching-up.

The Meet the Candidates event we held here in Lamar on Saturday was fun. It was almost like a big party, easy on the speeches, heavy on the chat and entertainment. I worked the voter registration booth and we added 9 people to the rolls, which works out to a county increase of a factor of 0.0017! Woo!

Then I went home and collapsed.

Sunday (after a nice 10 hours of sleep) I was re-vivified enough to make it to the semi-annual Friends of the Library sale. Mike was my helper this year, and he did a very good job, earning himself a DVD set he's been wanting about model train layouts. I was also pleased to discover the library videos that I KNEW Mike dropped in the returns drawer, but which had never been counted as returned, in the library sale. They had somehow gotten put in the donations box rather than being checked back in. Yay for personal vindication!

Then I went home and collapsed some more.

Yesterday, because of all the drama and collapsing and what-not, I had to pretty much spend the whole day on errands and on packing up four days worth of things we sold, so I could go mail them. At least I didn't QUITE collapse at the end of the day. Just sat around a lot, watched Heroes (which the clone and I are liking quite a lot) and then went to bed early at 11.

Today I am just doing the usual listing and puttering, but in between I have been having fun sorting out some pictures my mom scanned and sent to me. Like this one of me as a maniacal young bride ducking rice, circa 1972.



More later, as the catching up proceeds.