Sunday Morning Odds and Ends

Sunday morning, just after 6:30. Agnes is still asleep, Punky is curled up on the couch, and the usual early morning quiet reigns. Plenty to do later, though: Agnes teaches a dance lesson at 10:00, after which we'll practice for an hour or so before heading home to the usual weekend afternoon fun activities of laundry, and another stab at getting the study cleaned out.

Yes, the study isn't cleaned up yet. It does look marginally better than it did in the photo I showed you last week, but there's still quite a way to go. I got rid of a lot of old paper and pictures by running the scanner until it screamed, and then shredding the old stuff - you'd be surprised how heavy a tightly-packed large-sized Hefty bag of shredded paper can be. You can actually see more of the floor, and the piles of stuff on the desktop aren't quite as large as before, but there's lots more to do. Sigh.

I vented my spleen about the election season yesterday, and got the expected comments back from readers. My favorite was from craziequeen, who assures me that politicians in the UK are as corrupt, venal, and all-around worthless as they are here...they just sound more erudite and trustworthy because they have those great upper-crust British accents that all Americans are afraid to admit they really like (most of us would rather listen to Tony Blair reading the phone book than George Bush reading the US Constitution...or the parts of it he chooses to acknowledge). I'll have more to say about our ongoing political circus later, but I'll try to keep things more cheerful and unfocused for today.

As you know, I love photography and am a fairly serious hobby photographer. That's why I really enjoyed this picture I found on Miss Cellania's blog this morning:


Also found on that marvelous blog, this little cartoon that says it all about winter:


Speaking of winter, those of us here in Northern Virginia are wondering just what season it really is. Two nights ago, the temperature was in the upper teens (that's -7 Celsius for those of you in the rest of the world) ... tomorrow and Tuesday, it's supposed to reach 66 degrees (or almost 19 Celsius). I wish the stupid weather would make up its mind. Each time it warms up, Punky starts to shed her winter coat again, and I can't vacuum fast enough to keep up. Yesterday I took her outside for a good brushing, and ended up with enough hair to knit a new dog. For pete's sake, decide, already - winter or spring! AARRGGHH!!

Okay, I'm done now. The newspaper has just landed in my driveway with a satisfyingly heavy Sunday thud, and I think I'll take Punky for a walk and pick it up.

The rest of the day awaits!

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo