Couch turned war zone

Who would have thought that cleaning off a couch could result in such unexpected complications. My sparing cats have turned it into a war zone.

Almost immediately after putting the blue sheet over the couch, Oreo, the bigger cat, claimed it as his making it his favorite hang out spot. After I came back from my trip last week I noticed Mindy had started sitting on the opposite end. "Oh how nice", I thought to myself. Oreo and Mindy have had a terrible time getting along with each other, even 9 months after first meeting each other, it looked like we had finally turned the corner.

A couple days later I came downstairs, petted the little darlings, made breakfast and walked into the living room to discover a dark blue spot in the middle of the couch. "Oh my, Oreo's at it again", I thought, you may recall he has a history of this sort of thing. Only thing, it had very little odor, Oreo's mark unmistakable. I got out the enzyme spray and figured the cats still a little upset about me having left them alone during my trip.

As the days have gone by I've come to realize it's Mindy doing the dirty dead, usually every other day. I've read up some more on what could account for this, even put one of the litter boxes right on the couch. Worked over the weekend, but tonight I came home and found two spots. While working on the computer, looked over and saw a third with Mindy attempting to cover up the spot, like she thought the couch a big litter box.

As near as I can tell the couch has become a battle ground for territory and Mindy finds the sheet very pleasing to rub her paws on, making it doubly more inviting than the litter box. I think I will have to find a new home for Mindy.

Beginners guide to spending $250 at the drive thru

This past week while on vacation I became involved in my first at fault accident. It all started simple enough, trying to find a nice country restaurant for lunch. My friend and I turned off of Interstate 39 and onto US 24 which runs straight east/west through Illinois and Indiana. I figured we would certainly find many such restaurants along the way.

An hour and a half later we still had not and my "internal pressure" situation became increasingly desperate, going from "need to go soon", to "really need to go soon", to "I've gotta go real soon", to "Can't hold it much longer" culminating in "I'm in pain, I'll stop anywhere now". About which time we rolled into Watseka, IL and came across the local McDonald's. This McDonald's located at a 3 way intersection, so the left turn lane into the parking lot only one car long. I pulled into this lane and promptly noted someone backing out of the driveway and proceeding to the next drive. Quickly scanning the parking lot I saw they had it all blocked off for resealing, only the drive thru lane open, cars backed up all the way to the street. So I proceeded to pull into the drive, look for oncoming traffic, put the van in reverse and Crunch!! Turned out a young high school girl and her friend had pulled right up behind me, so instead of backing onto US 24, I backed into them. Between my urinary distress, noting no one behind me when I made my left turn and focusing on the traffic barreling down US 24 it never occurred to me to check directly behind me for a car on my bumper. Well someone had made their left turn immediately after I made mine and now they had precisely one less set of headlights on their vehicle, Grrr!!

The bright side - No one hurt, no tickets issued, Van OK, girl's car suffered damage only to driver's side headlights and part of the grill, girls real nice and had proper insurance, officer very courteous and professional, delay to trip minimal as friends in Indiana expecting us, I owned up to what happened and didn't try to blame the whole thing on the girls or the McDonald's, took my friends advice and bought the girls lunch at the McDonald's, life lesson learned

The down side - I will loose my "Premier" status on my insurance, I'm still jumpy while driving 3 days later, wonder if I should have asked some questions about the role the girls played in the accident by pulling up so close to me when my bumper had barely cleared the curb due to the backed up drive thru.

In case you're wondering, we did find a nice country restaurant in the very next town, Kentland, IN and had a wonderful lunch for $11 between the two of us.

Too much stuff?

Anyone who knows me knows I'm in the middle of trying to get my house back in order. I had started doing so before I became depressed, at which point all efforts came to a dead stop. Since then the house has descended into total clutter, getting perilously close to the infamous path down the middle going from room to room. Seeing that I don't like clutter this a totally unacceptable situation. Once clutter sets in, it takes a LONG time to get uncluttered.

This weekend I cleared off the couch in front of my porch windows. Embarrassing to say I had started to sort out my collection of computer, telephone and audio cables 2 - 3 years ago and there they have sat ever since. Well no more. They are now neatly organized in clear plastic tubs and have made there way down to the basement.

You might think this means I have an additional couch now, well not so fast. My folks got it reupholstered years ago and promptly put one of those cover things over it made of the ugliest green material you ever saw. I protested, "Why cover it up after spending so much to make it look nice?". "We want to preserve it". "Oh".

I had a bad feeling about this cover, and sure enough, when I took it off I found what I had feared. It had a foam backing on it, the kind that gets all nasty and sticky when it gets old. Now I have a yellow patterned sleeper couch, covered with olive green sticky foam. I figured I'd vacuum it off, instead I wound up with the stuff all over the vacuum attachments. Had to soak them down real good with Glass Plus and then almost peel it off. For now I've put an old sheet from my bed over it, transforming it into a dark blue sleeper couch.

I've never had much of an attachment to this couch so I had planned to sell it as part of a big garage sale, not sure who would take it in the shape it's in now, but yet it's in great shape except for the sticky stuff. Hmmm.

A week of silence

I've spent most of the past week glued to the computer and radio keeping up with Hurricane Katrina news. Haven't had much extra energy to put towards writing up a post. The one time that I did sit down and start typing I quickly realized I had nothing to say that would strike anyone as news ... feeling sad for the people in New Orleans, what's taking so long, ... now that some time has passed a couple thoughts keep running through my mind.

I keep thinking about the New Orleans Mayor, it seems to me he has gotten a bum rap. Further revelations about his performance may prove me wrong, but so far it strikes me that he did all he could with what he had available. I read one piece of commentary that criticized him for not rising to the level of Rudy Giuliani and taking charge of the situation. Not fair it seems to me, the Mayor of New York had the resources of a small nation at his finger tips visa vi the NYPD, NYFD and other city agencies, the feds simply came along side and filled in the gaps; Mayor Nagin as leader of the 25th largest city undoubtedly had many resources available to him, but New Orleans a very poor city, I'm guessing the resources available more in keeping with a city much smaller, surely not enough to even begin to handle evacuating and later rescuing the 100,000+ people who didn't own cars. He needed federal aid even before the hurricane hit to aid in the evacuation and properly staff the Superdome/Convention Center sites. Mayor Giuliani also had a functioning communication system, Mayor Nagin operating in a near communication blackout which undoubtedly made a bad situation 100 times worse. I do wonder why he waited so long to order the mandatory evacuation, interested to see as time goes on if this totally his own decision or if others pressured him to hold off. Having an extra day to evacuate the city and get a better handle on how many left behind would have surely made a big difference.

I've never had much patience for red tape. Of course, no one does. For myself I differentiate between the needed filling out forms and letting the process work its way through which I'm generally patient with vs. flat out CYA, protecting turf, hiding behind rules and other bureaucratic machinations that serve no purpose other than to hide incompetence, cover up mistakes, deflect responsibility or allow people to take it easy while at work. I'm definitely a spirit of the law kind of person and have endeavored to uphold this in the various jobs I've held. I'm also tend to go by the notion, "it's easier to apologize than ask permission". I think sometimes in my life I've carried this notion too far and have aimed in recent years to temper it a bit. As you might guess it kills me inside to hear all the reports of the muddled chain of command hindering the relief effort. "The governor didn't make an official request", "the request wasn't filled with the proper codes", "FEMA can't task military aircraft", "Defense Dept. and Justice Dept. lawyers debated the potential liability of National Guard troops trying to enforce local laws if President Bush used his authority to federalize all the Guard troops to speed the response", ... you get the idea. Usually just added inconvenience, in this case many lives lost and needlessly so. It would seem in times like these people would look past this stuff and get the job done in order to save lives in a crisis situation. I still find it hard to comprehend officials insisting on spending hours, sometimes days, hashing this stuff out with so many lives hanging in the balance.

Race. A couple days before the press started talking about it, it struck me that every picture of looting I saw featured black folk doing the looting. Soon after it struck me that every person I saw at the Superdome/Convention Center sites black, save one white nurse helping folks at the Convention Center. I don't believe those in power purposely abandoned the people in New Orleans because they are primarily black, on the other hand I'm not so naive as to think race and politics didn't play some role in the sluggish start to the relief effort. Look back to 9/11. President Bush and Rudy Giuliani both leaders in the same political party, probably not best friends, but surely they new each other on some level. You can bet the Mayor had no problem getting in touch with the President and having his ear when he needed to. Now envision Mayor Nagin trying to reach the White House, he's just another mayor to them, they've probably never met. Chances are he had trouble getting through and being taken seriously. I'm sure the President and the people around him care about the folks in New Orleans, just the same I'm guessing they didn't initially treat the hurricane and it's aftermath with the same degree of urgency and attention another part of the country might have received. Not because they are bigots, but because they don't have any day to day connection with this part of the country. Democrat Governor and Mayor, large poor black population, in other words it's not "family" the same way Florida would be with the President's brother, New York as our country's principle city, California with it's large population and influence, no, New Orleans just a "customer" of the federal government and got treated accordingly.