Bad Blogger! Bad Week!

Wilma was a non-issue. But isn't it an interesting symptom of our national hurricane fatigue that this one hasn't created the outpouring of charity? The devastating, unbelievable earthquake in Pakistan didn't cause the same horrified, sympathetic outpouring of support that last December's tsunami in Southeast Asia received. Children are dying. Everybody shrugs and flips to America's Next Top Model. (Has anyone heard from the previous winners? I don't know who the fuck they are, do you?) This country is tired. We're sick of hearing about bad shit. So we pretend it's not our problem or our responsibility, in the hope that it will go away.

I did figure out the Republican code of victimhood this week. Jeb before hurricane: "We're so ready!" Jeb after hurricane: "WE TOLD people to have three days of supplies on hand, this is their fault!" Uh, Jeb? The weather deteriorated on Sunday, Monday the storm blew through, Wednesday the natives got restless and started bitching - even if they had the wherewithal to have the three days of stuff on hand, by Wednesday, the THREE DAYS WERE UP, YOU FREAKING MORON! Let's count together - Monday, Tuesday, WEDNESDAY was day three, and ice was melting and gas tanks were empty and the supplies you'd bragged about Monday morning were, uh, not there. You reassured everybody that the state and FEMA were ready to be there for them, failed, and blamed them. Dick.

How can this man be governor and not KNOW the size of the population in South Florida? How can they NOT be able to calculate with a reasonable degree of accuracy the number who live in apartments or condos, the working poor, the below poverty level, the retirees on limitied incomes, who don't have camping supplies and a stockpile of canned goods on hand as a rule, who ran out of their mandated three days' supplies in, uh, three days? So you blame THEM??? Asshole.

Contrast that with the Victimhood of the Indicted Republicans! NONE of this is their fault, it's all a plot, a scheme, they are innocent, helpless victims of the left wing conspiracy (which, at this point apparently consists of a herd of bloggers and a few surviving brave souls in Congress, none of whom had anything to do with Fitzgerald's mission).

Monday evening, Girlchild's car died. In a shopping center parking lot. She worked it for an hour, trying to get it running, we finally called AAA, I went to keep her company - after an hour of waiting for the tow truck that was "going to be there within the hour you're the next call and he's right nearby really soon," we gave up, left the car, went home. She took my car to school Tuesday, she had a test. I worked a 10 hour day. It was special.

Tuesday - she got AAA to haul the car to our favorite car repair folks - friends of Boy, nice people. Had to order part. Took two days to get it.

Wed-Fri- rest of work week. Long. Hard. Like job, not bitching, but...damn.

Today - she's working, the car was finally fixed (long story of Nissan dealership treating indie garage like shit omitted) but we had no time to go get it, she had to go to work. She took my car. We'll get hers on Monday.

I have little to say about the Scooter indictment - wiser and more articulate voices have said it already. I'm old enough to have been somewhat politically aware (young teen) during Watergate. The Indictment of The Scooter is just the overture of this opera. Make yourself comfy, gonna be a long one.

Knitting: Yes, I still do it, and I was kicking myself that I didn't bring it with me when I went to meet Girl and her dead car and wait for the "within the hour" AAA tow truck, but who knew they were such lying sacks of shit? I'm into the third skein of the linen shawl, I have 4 skeins and I do believe this will be just right - long enough, wide enough, and not so widely openly lacey that it looks like a fishnet and the pattern is lost. The start of skein 3 brings it to low hip length unstretched, 4 should be nicely generous, but not as wildly holey as the Size 7 Needle! version. That's just not right, it's way, way too loose a gauge. I'm a loose knitter but not insanely so, I'm generally one needle size off the pattern, and linen doesn't stretch.

Absolutely love the latest linen washcloth, in double broken rib stitch from BGW's 1st stitch treasury. This is a great stitch - it's like a waffle weave used for "thermal" garments, and would make a great cotton or linen baby blanket for warm months. Next baby blanket, for sure.

Dog School: Dudley is so good, he kills us. Today we worked on Leave It, and our instructor told us it would take about 60 repetitions to really get the dog to get it. Dudley caught on to what we were doing in 3, and tried to circumvent it by rep 6. We need to work on him with it, but not the way she taught it - it needs to be adapted a bit. Like the no-jumping exercise - our instructor doesn't like to use commands to stop jumping, she prefers to use positive reinforcement for not jumping. Makes sense, but I've been doing a "NO PAWS!" with Dudley, and it's working nicely - when I come home and he lunges at me with paws flying, I just remind him No Paws and he pulls them in and sits nicely to be loved. My biggest concern with his joyful, expressive nature is that one day he will jump on some kid with love, and accidentally scratch with his paw - he's not big, but he's tall enough to hit a small child's face - so this is a really important issue. He's learning. He's a good, good dog.

Girlchild took him on a playdate this week - her boyfriend has two larger dogs, a golden and a pound puppy spaniel. Dudley was nervous and submissive at first, because he's basically a chicken, but after he got over his fears he LOVED playing with the big dogs. They dropped him off later, and Dudley SLEPT. I tried to get him to go out for a final pee before bed, and he just rolled an eye at me - I picked him up and put him in his crate and he was OUT. A tired dog is a good dog.

The weather is just glorious. It's 64-ish right now, and the daytime highs are in the 70s. This is why people move to Florida. It certainly isn't for the hurricanes, shitty pay, and roaches big enough to saddle.