I have a vague memory of Tiddly Tiddly being something from Winnie the Pooh, but it is entirely possible that this is something my brain made up entirely.

Regardless, I think it’s a Tiddly Tuesday.

I almost forgot to post today, as I spent a great deal of time writing and editing other stuff (work stuff, school stuff, some of it fun stuff, but most of it not.)

I saw the cover of today’s DA and realized that I completely missed last night’s Festival of Ideas speaker. It was Leon Wynter, who spoke on race. I’d wanted to see that one, so I’m rather irked I totally forgot. Except for the fact that this cold is still bothering me, so it’s probably for the best that I stayed home.

All day I’ve been on the verge of losing my voice, which means that when I talk I’ve got that lower, raspy voice that men like oh so well. It’s actually slightly deeper than the phone voice that makes Gina’s husband happy when I answer the phone at work. I actually don’t mind the way my voice sounds in my head, but then I am easily amused.

I have, however, NOT lost my voice, despite the fact that I refuse to keep quiet. This should not really come as a big surprise to anyone who knows me well–the inability to shut-up is one of my better known traits. We’ll see how things are tomorrow.

Other than that, I’ve been paying attention to the news with only half an ear. The whole situation in Israel is completely depressing, the upheaval over elections in Taiwan is insane, and the only good news seems to be that the death toll from the train bombings in Spain is going to be lower than first estimated. Although this is a good thing, the idea that hundreds of people lost their loved ones is still extremely depressing.

The other good news on the horizon is that West Virginia is supposed to be a battle ground state in the upcoming election. So perhaps we will have some attention paid to the state of things here. Plus if all those politicos and their associated reporters want to come here and spend money, that’s a good thing.

Just make sure we make ’em spend the money.

And that’s enough for now. I’m off to bed to see if I can sleep this cold into submission.

It would be perhaps a bit of a understatement to say that I was not ready to go back to work. Despite that, vacation is over, so back to work and back to school.

As far as house projects, the bedroom is done, and I think it looks quite nice, even if I do say so myself. Pictures to come. Michael also changed the switch and several of the outlets in that room, and then did the big electrical project in the basement–adding extra switches for the basement lights. Essentially, most of the lights in the basement can now be controlled from a group of switches at the bottom of the stairs. This is a huge improvement over things when we moved in. At that point there were few lights, and those lights were all on pull strings (you know what I mean) so now we have plenty of light, all those lights are on switches, and most of those lights have two switches, so they can be turned on and off from multiple places.

Pretty neat.

One of my other projects was to de-junk the house. Three bags of junk and a huge pile of books will all be leaving. I was thinking about listing the books I’m getting rid of to see if anyone wanted them. I already have almost $200 in credit for used books at the Bookshelf, so it’s not as if I’ll use that up any time soon to need even MORE credit for used books. Which reminds me, I also have pictures of the pile of books that were taken out of the bedroom I redid. Even I was somewhat stunned by the number of books we had just in that room.

My only other exciting project was that I planted flower seeds. I now have many containers of dirt, sitting in the basement, waiting for life to start. Not a huge variety this year: sweet pea, pansy, carnations, Chinese lantern (which I have NEVER been able to grow), catnip, purple cone flower, million bells, and several other things I can’t remember. I also wanted to plant silver dollars, but couldn’t find any seeds–I’ll keep looking.

We looked at the plants outside, and it looks like the Jasmine is dead. I’m not sure about the lavender, though I am hoping it made it through the winter. The heather, despite its brown spots, has some flowers already, so hopefully that will come back fully as well.

Crocuses are blooming, and daffodils shouldn’t be too far behind. The irises and day lilies are starting to come up, although slowly. It looks as if most everything made it through the winter, although for some of the shrubs I won’t know for certain until it gets warmer.

I didn’t even look at the roses, but I am hoping that all the plants, even the now ones, made it through the winter. Right now what I want is the weather to warm up and to stay warm, so that I can move my plants outside. The plants that were relegated to the basement (No room! No room!) are starting to look a little worse for wear, and I’ll be glad when I can get them outside and into the sun.

But mostly it’s nice to see flowers coming up, and to think about what I’m going to plant this summer, for after the death of winter comes the new life of spring.

Slate died this morning. I’d been expecting it, as she’d barely been eating all week, and last night she wasn’t even interested in eating treats.

When we got up this morning she was barely moving and was having trouble breathing. We took her to the vet, because I was worried that the breathing was causing her to suffer, but she died before the vet even looked at her, so at least her death was quick.

When we brought her home last fall, I knew that it wouldn’t be for very long, since she was very old, but it was still hard. But she spent the last months of her life very happy as an inside cat, getting all kinds of attention, so her life was good.

I’ll just miss her.

THIS is the big winter storm that drove us home early?

Sheesh.

On other fronts, the cats definitely want my dad to feed them on a regular basis.

Guess my mom has fed them previous times we’ve been gone, because my dad was apparently unable to find the bins of cat food, and instead fed them the entire jar of cat treats.

It’s Monday night and we’re heading back from Baltimore. We had planned on staying until Tuesday, but the weathermen have been calling for gloom, doom, and snowstorms.

I should have expected it. This is, after all, WVU’s spring break.
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It’s vacation time. That means that even if we don’t visit tropical hot spots or any place any otherhuman would find to be a nice vacation spot, we will go out of our way to get good food.
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I could write in detail about the panel discussion of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” but what struck me more was a folktale that kept running through my head as I thought about the movie and the impact it is having upon society. One speaker did say something that I think can’t be emphasized enough. He said (and I’m paraphrasing) that if one act of anti-Semitism—if one synagogue is burned because of this movie, then it should never have been made. The story of gospels is not one of murder and vengeance, but of love and compassion and caring for those who can not care for themselves. If that message is missed, then the point of the whole story has been ignored.

But to the story that kept running through my mind….
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Blogging will be erratic, until it is no longer so.

It’s spring break, and we’re doing work on the house and travelling.

(Be jealous, our time away will involve going to Baltimore, which means we’ll be eating seafood! Yippee!)

Here’s hoping that we get plenty of rest and relaxation.

I was thinking about fears, and how each person’s fears are unique—not necessarily the fear itself, but how they developed that fear, assuming they even know why.

I was thinking tonight of my quirk, my strange fear, when I started to think about the details of that fear, and whether others remember it the same way I do.
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And y’all said it was worthless information…

Two new pictures of Slate for your amusement (or not).

You must, if you have not already, read Erin’s latest post. I’m trying to come up with a way to describe it, but can’t really, except to say that Sean is definitely a sound sleeper.

Oh, and my favorite sentence was this:
“And how can they get him for burglary when he wasn’t stealing?
Let’s review!”

And if you want to find out about the cats, then you have to read the comments.

Went to see the panel discussion last night on “The Passion of the Christ” and have a lot to say, but it’s not going to be right now that I say say it unfortunately, so you’ll just have to wait.

Today Gina and I were given Office 2003 and told that we needed to update all our documentation.

Although it looks mostly as if these are just going to be cosmetic changes, it’s still a big task and a lot of work.

So, I went on a doughnut run (walk actually) to Sheetz.

Doughnuts make everything better.

But I still hate Bill Gates.

“Birdwatchers from all over Britain who gathered in Grimsby to catch sight of a rare American robin were horrified to see her eaten by a passing sparrowhawk.”

That’ll teach us Americans to leave home and go to Europe.

The article described what a robin looked like (this is the BBC after all), but the description, “a member of the thrush family, with oily-black wings and tail” did not bring a robin to my mind.