These are my sister’s kittens and my houseguests until tonight. Thunder is on the left and…wait for it…Lightning is on the right. This morning, I kind of freaked because one of the cats jumped up on the window sill and stuck his head out the partially open window. For a moment, I thought I might have to make up some story for my sister that the cat ran away to see the world or something like that. Fortunately, the cat’s existential crisis passed and it decided to play with a paper bag instead.
There was a slight mix-up with my hotel in Paris. I thought I’d be staying on the Champs d’Elysees, but that turned out to be exorbitantly expensive. Instead, I’ll probably be staying at this hotel in the St. Germain neighborhood, inside the Latin Quarter. I’ve made arrangements for a van and driver for each day I’m in Paris, but I’m wondering if I should scale that back a day or two because I’m within walking distance of the Louvre, Notre Dame, and Musee d’Orsay. I should also mention that if there are any Parisians who read my blog, I’d love to meet you and buy you a drink. The same goes for any readers in Berlin. Which reminds me, I should e-mail a couple of my cousins in Germany and let them know I’m coming.
My sister’s cats are creeping me out. Wherever I go in my condo, they follow me around like they’re stalking prey. And sometimes they’ll simply sit and stare at me until I start getting self-conscious. Oh, and one of them decided my carpet looked an awful lot like a litter box. Charming creatures.
The way some Republicans are behaving towards Cindy Sheehan, the grieving mother of a soldier killed in Iraq and who is camped outside Bush’s Crawford ranch, is so vitriolic it’s almost bizarre. Whether or not you agree with the symbolism of her vigil, she certainly doesn’t deserve to be called a “whore” or peppered with taunting chants of “We don’t care.” I’m not sure this is even about Iraq anymore. It’s about quashing any display of speech that a small but potent group of ideologues deem threatening. And yes, there are rude, overzealous liberals who also behave badly. But if someone from the left made derogatory remarks about the mother of a dead soldier, that individual would quickly be vilified by the right. But because the right feels like they are the exclusive proprietors of star-spangled patriotism, it somehow excuses their conduct from the normal bounds of decency and compassion.
My TiVo finally gave up the ghost the other day. After three years of near constant spinning, one or both of the hard drives must have failed. You wanna know how addicted I am to this technology? As soon as I was positive the device was kaput, I was scouring eBay for a replacement. Fortunately, I found a Series 2 model for a very reasonable price and I’m going to try to hook it up to my wireless network, which has my inner geek rubbing his hands in anticipation. Now, I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge that I didn’t need to buy this toy. Then again, I probably didn’t need to buy an iPod either. I have few vices in life and my gadget fetish doesn’t carry the risk of communicable disease or incarceration, so there’s my rationalization, lame as it is. And besides, I can stop whenever I want.
As soon as I get that LCD display for my computer.
I had some medical supplies sent over to Europe so that I wouldn’t have to pack as much for the trip. They’re currently stuck in customs and it’s uncertain whether they’ll ever be released. I can imagine some French customs clerk looking at some spare ventilator tubing, scratching his head, and wondering Qu’est-ce que c’est? Hopefully, they’ll realize that I’m not trying to smuggle contraband into the EU and they’ll send the packages on their way.
My division is moving to a new building near the Capitol at the end of September. And the President signed a multi-billion dollar transportation bill. These two events are related. You see, for all the pork packed in the bill, it does contain some money to develop a transit depot in St. Paul. This might mean that we’ll soon see progress on a light-rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul, along what’s known as the Central Corridor. I’ve commuted between Minneapolis and St. Paul before and I-94 can turn into a parking lot during rush hour. I’d gladly take the train to work if such a line existed, rather than stare at an angry red ribbon of taillights on the freeway. The Hiawatha Line has been a resounding success and it seems that the stars are aligned for this expansion to take place. C’mon, civic leaders of the Twin Cities, make my life a little easier.
Beginning tomorrow, I’m supposed to watch my sister’s kittens while she’s in Chicago for a few days. These are the instructions she e-mailed me:
On Friday, change the litter. All you have to do is pick out the hard pee and poop. I know it sounds gross, so make someone who has cats do it. Then all you have to do is put fresh crystals on top so it doesn’t smell too bad.
Damn right it sounds gross. Sorry, but the idea of a pet that leaves its excrement lying around in a box for you isn’t all that appealing to me. I know, I know, I need to stop the cat-bashing. I’m sure my next girlfriend will simply adore cats and I’ll have a dramatic change of heart. Or I might just keep my mouth shut.
Okay, a technical question for the electrical engineers in the audience. I use a battery charger to recharge the external battery connected to my ventilator on a nightly basis. In Europe, can I plug the charger into a transformer and still use it to charge my battery? Or do I shell out an obscene amount of money for a dual-voltage charger from the vent manufacturer? My wheelchair manufacturer is loaning me a dual-voltage charger free of charge, but the vent manufacturer :cough Puritan Bennet :cough: isn’t in as an accommodating spirit. Thoughts?
Yesterday, I realized that it’s been ten years to the day since I moved to Minneapolis. I remember driving here from Wisconsin with my brother in our old Volkswagen van. It was an extremely hot day and the air conditioner didn’t work, making the drive seem especially long. We got lost once we reached Minneapolis and it took us a while to find my new apartment building. That all seems like another lifetime now. Minneapolis has long felt like home and I don’t foresee returning to Green Bay anytime soon. But August 7, 1995 remains a significant bright line in my own personal history because I remember a time when I wasn’t sure I’d be going to law school and spending the next decade living at home with my parents seemed like a distinct possibility. And since I’ve been here, I really couldn’t ask for a better life. I’m lucky to be where I am and have so many outstanding people in my private orbit, and now seemed like a good time to remind myself of that fact.
This weekend is Fringe Festival in Minneapolis. Fringe Festival is a celebration of experimental theater, performance art, and multimedia projects at various venues around the city. Later this afternoon, I’m going to a performance called Fragile Lines that is written and directed by a friend of a friend. I have no idea what to expect, but I think it will be interesting. I know that this artist strongly believes in audience participation and I’m curious to see how that’s incorporated into the performance.
I forgot to mention this earlier, but last week NPR did a story on accessible voting technology for people with disabilities. It doesn’t offer much insight on the current debate between those who want a verifiable paper trail and those who want accessible voting booths, but it does provide a good over of how the technology needs to be accessible to people with a range of disabilities.
I got my passport in the mail yesterday. And, as I might have expected, the photo of me is wince-inducing. I don’t know what it is about me and government-issued identification photos, but I always have this slack facial expression that makes me look like I’m stoned out of my gourd on some high-quality narcotics. And no, I’m not scanning the photo for posting on this blog. Believe me, I’m doing you a favor.
Ugh. For some reason, I’ve been feeling kind of sleep deprived all week. It probably didn’t help that there were a couple nights when I didn’t get to bed until 12:30 or so. If I had my way, I’d be up until 2 every night and in bed until 10. Why do you think I’m working so hard on this becoming-a-writer thing?
