Enemy of Entropy
Some of Today’s News in Atlanta
I managed to avoid the crime news, which is always horrific. Okay, I mostly avoided it. The three boys under 10 who are being charged with kidnapping and rape1 is getting to me. That poor little girl!
Transgender candidate misled voters, suit alleges2
Actually, these guys seem to be suing everybody but the dogcatcher down there in Riverdale.
What does Ms. Bruce’s gender have to do with how she’ll perform as a city council member? Nothing, of course Ir’s been brought up because a couple of sore losers just won’t let go. Asshats!
Trumpet the news: Elephant is going to be a mom3
But she won’t deliver until somewhere around April 1, 2009! 22 months of pregnancy. Dumbo never mentioned that little fact.
In metro Atlanta, profile of those in need during the holidays has changed4
It isn’t just during the holidays, either. Food banks across the country are seeing more and more working people who need help. They’re having to reduce the amount of food given to each person or family because the demand has outpaced the supply so much.
I can’t say that I’m surprised. I know too many people who are just barely scraping by, and it isn’t because they’re irresponsible. It’s just how the American economy is, and something needs to change very quickly.
1 http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/stories/2007/11/19/assault_1119.html
2 http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/clayton/stories/2007/11/19/riverdalesuit_1120_web.html?cxntnid=amn112007e
3 http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/stories/2007/11/19/elephant_1120.html?cxntnid=amn112007e
4 http://www.ajc.com/holiday/content/holidayguide/stories/2007/11/19/food_1120.html?cxntnid=amn112007e
Finally, home & cat stuff
The last installment of the update — home stuff
Sam and I are adjusting to sleeping at a new height. Yes — height. I’ve lusted after a captain’s bed for some time, because of the storage possibilities and how much more walker/wheelchair friendly our bedroom would be if we could remove some of the furniture that would be made extraneous by real underbed storage. Well, we got one via Freecycle this past week!
It’s a queen size frame, so our current (very, very good) mattress and box frame fit. That was an important consideration. And the headboard is really neat, with shelves that are very handy for one of the alarm clocks, and my glasses, and tissues, and so on.
The trick is that this captain’s bed was originally designed for a waterbed. The box frame fits into the box where the waterbed mattress would fit, and you have a surface that’s about a foot higher than our old bed. Then the mattress goes on top of that, and we have a bed that I have to use a stepstool to climb into.
It is an imposing edifice! We will no longer be chasing our shoes and other items out from under the bed, nor can the cats hide under the bed. There’s one less reason to run the Roomba (it does a good job of chasing dust bunnies out from under beds). And we have twelve big drawers of additional storage!
The donor was a real gem. She actually brought the bed here to us, since we don’t have a truck. It took her two loads to do it, too, in her tiny little pick-up. She told me that she just wanted to be sure that it went to a good home. Her mother was with her, and told Sam that it was her late partner’s bed, and that it pained her to see it. I thanked her publicly for going above and beyond anything that could possibly be expected, and we’ll be paying that kindness forward for some time.
The attic is insulated, as of Friday! That should make a nice difference in our utility bills and winter comfort. Now we need to get into the crawl space and find the source of a draft (and mouse entry!) under the kitchen cabinets/dishwasher, and we’ll be quite snug.
Kiyoshi, the junior cat, has been neutered and given his first round of shots. He seems a bit calmer already. He and Shelley aren’t buddies, but they are a bit friendlier now that he’s settling down. They can get along well enough to share Shelley’s heated window perch. She’s willing to put up with him as long as he’s being inoffensive and bringing extra body heat into the equation – unless he tries to take the position closest to the window. Then there’s trouble.
At 18, Shelley seldom leaves the kitchen, where the perch and her food are. The litterbox is in the laundry room right off the kitchen. We’ve got a little seating area in there, so she gets a fair amount of attention. Kiyoshi roams the house, hanging out wherever Katie is when she’s home. Shelley is the kitchen cat. She’s losing weight, which is worrisome, and she’s got cataracts. Her hearing is going, but she doesn’t seem to be in pain or have a bad quality of life, so as long as she’s reasonably happy, we’ll just keep nursing her along.
And that’s about it. Boring, but wordy. That’s me.
