New Contest For The Neighbor Girl

So, here's the deal: my high school neighbor is trying to come up with an idea for a children's book. Her story is Cinderella, but she must place it in a different culture. No requirement as to what kind. Except Nigerian. Race is not a factor, but it will be a 16 page children's book. Any ideas for a general theme or placement or type of community or...well, you get the drift.

After one full day of absolutely no battle with the rental agency...it caved without a whimper. "You're right. Your lease does end at the end of May". Didn't even have to bring out the big guns. Now, I just have to get the air conditioner back in place and arrange for a professional carpet cleaner to do the duty of shampooing my oh so dirty carpets. i have diiiirty carpets. Of course, I could just let the rental agency take care of it. I'd probably be hiring the same guys they do anyway. Plus, I need to mow the yard and do a bit of weeding. Other than that, I need to figure out a way to get the house keys back to the agency on the day i move out (I'll be driving a 16 foot truck with my car as its butt plug). And how to get two heavy futon couches into the truck the day before I move. The couches I can take care of with a beer bribe. The keys...well, that'll be tricky, because I don't want to start for home headed the wrong way on the highway. Can't leave them in the mailbox. They must be presented at the agency's office.

As for the J-O-B, well let's just say I know what it feels like to be a lame duck. Nothing happening in my lab is going through me. Everyone who is involved in its expansion is ignoring me and talking around me. Today, my boss stopped me at 4:59 in order to "fill me in" on what "they" are going to do. When we got to the sieve shaker, he said "I think we're going to move it over there, but I know you don't give a shit". I didn't reply. Should have. Should have said "How the hell do you know what I give or don't give since you haven't included me in one fucking decision over the past two weeks?". Instead, I said nothing. Just put it away in my mind's storage locker for future reference. As soon as he said that, I walked him over to a newly installed counter and told him that I wanted to move the specific gravity tank over to it and cut a new hole in the top for the cage to hang from thereby protecting the tank's water from dust when it wasn't in use. So, maybe in a sense I did tell him what I thought. I just did it in a positive manner. What a dick this guy is. No one should ever presume to know what I'm thinking, especially not him.

May have just made a deal with the high school neighbor to have her boyfriend come over and mow the lawn (it's rather intricate) tomorrow. Not holding my breath, but if I get home and it's all done he will have earned $75.
What's that you say? Where's the politics? I dunno. Did it run away or something while I wasn't looking? You mean Peace On Earth didn't descend while I was napping? Okay, I'll go look....

...Well, I was about to call it quits and tell you nothing happened today, but then I found this gem. Conservative commentators calling the Pulitzer winners for news reporting treasonous. Nice. Good to know that journalistic integrity runs through the veins of all of the pundits and talking heads. Good to know that not one of them is in the pay of the current Badministration or believes that the Fourth Estate should bow to Bush Omerta. I'm sure we'll hear more in the near future from the right wing attack dogs about this. I mean, really. Why should someone be rewarded for outing the illegal surveillance program or the rendition flights and secret torture prisons? That's just terrorist-lover talk. That's the kind of irresponsible reporting that will have double-humped camels stalking our streets within months. Have they no shame? Have they no patriotism? Don't they know they can get paid much better for just accepting Scott McClallan's morning news copy and publishing it as is? The Wall Street Journal knows this. So does the Washington Post most of the time. Why do the wannabes...oops, two of these winners ARE from the Washington Post. Should we expect to see their resignations on the boss's desk tomorrow morning? Perhaps this will wake up the editors at that, ahem, fine rag and make them want to do more stories like that one.
update: even though the temps at night this week have been in the mid to upper 30's, the mosquitoes have arrived. biguns, too. and i haven't seen my cat in a while. you don't think...nah, them skeeters ain't THAT big. is they?