There was a white haired woman standing out in the street with a broom chasing the hell hounds from next door (which got out again) earlier when I left to go to the post office. I didn’t recognize her, but seeing as she had a broom, I just assumed she belonged to one of the houses on the street even though I’ve never seen her before. There are lots of people living on this street I have never seen before. When I got back from my errand, she was puttering around in Pat’s yard. In my mind, I then placed her in the category of belonging with Pat’s house. I mean, who putters around in a yard they have no business puttering around in?

Skip to an hour ago … I opened the shades on the front den window to let some light in. It’s something I don’t often do, because it makes hiding from strangers standing on my porch and knocking on my door more than a bit difficult, if I am sitting at my computer. When I opened the shades, I noticed the same white haired woman was still toddling around the area. I made a mental note that she may be mental. I watched her for a few minutes and determined she wasn’t stark raving mad and therefore not a threat of any immediate sort. I went back to wasting my time reading Metafilter.

Skip to a few minutes ago … I was sitting here hunched down in front of my computer monitor playing a stupid flash game when someone dared to ring the doorbell. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate my doorbell? It sounds like cats being strangled while their claws are being drug over a chalkboard. Anyway, I hunch down even more in my chair, in order to not be seen by whoever it is that doesn’t know I hate my doorbell. I peeked around the edge of my monitor to make sure this person wasn’t in front of the window. They weren’t visible, so when they knocked on the door, I made a dash to the kitchen and began making my way to the living room window as stealthily as I could to get a peek at who it could be. Please do note that at the very moment I am made aware of your presence on my front porch, often before you even bother pressing that ugly pink doorbell button or knocking on the door, you will be vetted thoroughly from several locations within the house. If I don’t know you, the chances of you ever even knowing I exist within these walls are slim to none.

I poke my eyeball up against the blinds. It’s the white haired woman, and I determine that not answering the door is the best course of action. If it’s important, she’ll be persistent or leave a note. She does neither, and I watched as she stepped off my porch and headed across the street to Pat’s kid’s house and rings their doorbell and knocks on their door. No one answers, which is no surprise. We all peek through our blinds before answering our door. I think this behavior comes from living within two miles of 75 churches (I wish I was exaggerating) and having to deal with a weekly onslaught of people selling religion door-to-door. As she stepped off the porch of the house across the street, she took notice of a small fallen branch, not much bigger than a large twig really, and she starts kicking it into the air for whatever insane reason she seems to have. My suspicion that she’s insane grew exponentially at that point. This prompted the man of the house to answer the door. I couldn’t hear what they were saying (too bad I didn’t have the living room window open), but she pointed over to the house the hell hounds come from, or maybe the house where Sewing Woman used to live, and a few words are exchanged. She held up something black she was carrying that she didn’t have before. I couldn’t make out what it was. The man shrugs, shakes his head, and goes back into his house. The white haired woman proceeds out into the middle of the street and wanders off down the road.

So now I am left wondering who the hell she is, where she came from, where the hell she got the broom she had earlier, why she was chasing the hell hounds, and whether or not she is, in fact, stark raving mad. For a moment, I thought maybe she was a census taker, seeing as I have neglected my lawful duty to report my household details for that census test and have received the obligatory letter telling me “someone will be contacting” us soon. I dismissed this as a possibility though, because that certainly wouldn’t explain why this somewhat crazy-acting person has been hanging around on my street for most of the day … unless she’s stalking those of us who haven’t filled out our forms yet. It’s all just very weird, and I am going to begin periodic surveillance of the street now. I have even put the chain on the door. If she rings my gosh awful doorbell again, I will have to answer it just out of curiosity.

With my luck it WILL be a stark raving mad census taker, and then I’ll have to act like I don’t speak English. No one ever expects someone to only know German, and it’s a rare day when you run into someone who also speaks it (around here anyway). In fact, never once has my ploy of “Ich spreche nicht Englisch” not worked perfectly. All the same, it just doesn’t seem like this person has any official reason to be meandering around on our street and puttering in our yards. She seems altogether nuts to me.

I’m telling you, there is never a dull moment around here.

Found the little post office that is officially closest to the house. It’s super easy to get to, and is so tiny there’s only one guy that works there all week long … and he’s really pleasant, knowledgeable and sweet (and talkative). It’s in an old shopping center right by the new big Target and surrounded by Korean shops and restaurants. I’ll have to go explore the shopping center some more when it doesn’t look like it’s about to rain.

So my first ever artist trading cards have gone out in the mail!

I find myself with a free afternoon, and I don’t know what I want to do with it. I don’t even have to plan dinner, because we have leftover chicken from last night. Since the grey weather has left me feeling lazy, I’m betting I’ll waste my free time surfing the ‘net and getting nothing important accomplished … or playing a video game. Downtime is a good thing.

The Texas Legislature is hard at work during yet another special session to deal with the school funding problem. Naturally the first thing they have decided to focus their attention on is lowering property taxes … the very thing that supplies school funding, because obviously that’s what they think needed to be fixed.

The House has passed a few bills they seem pretty proud of but I see as completely stupid, at least in relation to getting anything done about school funding.

They want to create a Property Tax Relief Fund, and into that fund will go a portion of our budget surplus as well as the new tobacco tax they want to create, the new vehicle tax they want to create and the new business tax they want to create. So basically, all the things they said they were going to do to raise money to go toward school funding is now going to go to lowering property taxes, which makes one wonder where they think they are going to get money for schools. Yes, let’s lower the tax that pays for schools and let’s also take other new taxes that could go to schools and put them toward lowering the tax that used to pay for schools. Like I said, pretty stupid.

What’s really stupid is the provision of one bill that requires a letter be sent to Texans telling them how much property tax relief they might get should these bills pass … letters to be sent out in October, which is conveniently right before the November elections. Why letters? Because according to the House, if they don’t send out these letters paid for with our tax money, no one will know what their representatives are up to.

“Yeah, they may watch TV tonight, or see us right now, and say, ‘Hey, gee whiz we’re getting a tax cut.’ And they’ll know who voted for it and who didn’t. But I don’t think your average workingman is going to get all his info from TV.”
–Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa

Yeah, ’cause no one watches TV, reads newspapers, listens to the radio, uses the internet or knows anyone else who does who might talk about it at the office or grocery store. If it doesn’t arrive in our mailbox, we have NO idea what it going on with our state government.

While I am all for lower property taxes in general, this smells like a scam … especially since they have been saying that school districts can then raise property taxes after this plan is in place to gain more funding for their schools. So in the end, I guarantee you, we will end up paying the same or possibly even more in taxes than we are now. Mark my words, in no way is any of this going to end up benefiting anyone (except possibly the wealthiest home owners), and it’s certainly not going to solve the school funding problem.

I can’t wait to see what the next issue comes to the table that they think is somehow important to the school funding problem and what sort of tax-payer funding letter I’ll receive on it telling me how IF it passes how very much it’s going to benefit me (or the schools).

They can send out all the letters they want to promising great things if bills pass, but I think it’s a little too late for many of our elected officials. People around here at least are REALLY getting fed up with the stupidity. I’m not so sure a 10% (temporary) cut in property taxes is going to buy all the voters off in November.

Since I had access to the camera (Lin’s been hogging it lately), I thought I’d take a quick shot of one of my birthday presents … a caricature of me mixing up a storm in the kitchen drawn by my mom. Too freaking cute! Going to have to get a frame for it and hang it somewhere!

Finished those artist trading cards. Nothing like a little procrastination to make it all the more interesting. Tomorrow morning I’ll run them over to the postal station and pop them into the mail. I’m sort of thrilled really to have discovered a postal station less than two miles away and easily gotten to by back roads. No more driving all the way to the big one on the other side of the highway for me! Amazing how I am still learning where things are in my neighborhood, isn’t it.

abitblue and memoryanddream … no peeking behind the cut, unless you want to spoil your surprise! I’m gonna trust you!
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The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?

A lot more, it turns out, especially if an idea still in the early stage should catch on: standing-room-only “seats.”

Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none have agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal.

If I hadn’t just read that in the New York Times, I would SWEAR it was one of those ridiculous email forwards the elders of my family keep spreading around. And how many new passengers can they cram into economy class using this “great” new idea? Twelve on a 757 and six on a 737. Wow. :roll:

Busy weekend. The yard looks like humans live here again. I’d be sure the neighbors would be thrilled except I noticed once we were done we are the only people (other than the hell hound owners) who has mowed in the last three months.

During the yard work, I was cornered by Annoying Boy. All I can tell you is he wants to get a tattoo on his arm (UT Longhorn) and that one of the guys that used to live here still stops by to see him and to see whether the house (ours) has changed or not. It hasn’t, and this seems to make him happy (it doesn’t make me so happy, but I can relate to not wanting your childhood home to change).

I’ve been sort of out of it today. The weather is somewhat drab, my mood matches, and I have that pre-migraine weirdness in my brain. Two of the major triggers for my headaches are rapid changes in air pressure and airborne pollens, which sucks, because unlike dietary or lifestyle triggers, there isn’t a damn thing I can do about that except hope a storm brews up and clears both problems. Storms are expected tonight, and for the rest of the week. Low probability of them being in our area, but my head is telling me the air pressure is wacky. Yes, I am a natural barometer.

What time I had to spend at the computer desk today was whiled away doing research on a little news blurb I heard on the local new this morning concerning a nearby private prison facility and the latest plans for it. The news blurb said they didn’t/couldn’t get anymore information, which is silly seeing as I dug up tons of related information on the ‘net in about an hour’s worth of looking. I’m going to write up a post about it after I piece together all the bits of information. You must know if I am going to this much trouble to look into something, it’s something that has bent my nose out of shape a wee bit.

Lin just called to say he was hungry and ask what’s for dinner (chicken), so I need to get started on that. I also need to finish up those artist trading cards. They have to be in the mail tomorrow. I meant to finish them last night and get them out today, but I was so tired after being outside so much on Sunday, all I wanted to do afterward was slouch on the couch before crawling into bed … which is exactly what I did.

I’ll probably babble more later, but I’m not going to allow myself to sit down at the computer again until I have finished those cards and gotten them into envelopes (and, of course, fed the starving husband).

Orb: “Did you change the channel? What happened to the show we were watching? Did it end? This isn’t the same show we were watching! Where’s the show we were watching!”

Lin: “No, I didn’t change the channel. This is a “Science Moment” and now you’ve missed it.”

Orb: “It was just about the moon anyway. I know about how life couldn’t exist on Earth without our ’sister’ moon, and how it effects tides and stuff, and how it protects us from asteroids. Boring.”

Lin: “Someday I hope to be as intelligent and as enlightened as you.”

I’ll admit it, I find science shows about the moon, on the whole, boring. I’ve seen too many of them recently, I guess. An extended blurb containing common knowledge about the moon, in the middle of my completely silly TV program about what creatures living on other planets might be like is even more boring. Bring on more strange aliens, please … and NOW!

Hopefully I re-established my geek reputation with Lin a few minutes later during another commercial:

Orb: “Do you happen to know anything about the relationship between Fibonacci Numbers and the Golden Mean? I know there is one, but I can’t remember what it is.”

Lin: “I’m not sure I even know what a Fibonacci Number is.”

Or maybe he thought I was asking that to show my high intelligence and enlightenment. Who knows, but at least it shut him up. Being bored by the moon does not make me an intellectual snob. I’m just really sick of hearing about the moon.

The property tax bill arrived today. We always face it with some amount of dread, this year especially since the news has been announcing lately that appraised values on a lot of homes had gone up about 16%. When I handed it to Lin, he just tossed it on his desk and left it unopened. Our tax bill was high enough last year. Neither of us really wanted to know the damage this year.

Well, I couldn’t resist. I opened it.

On the one hand, having your property value decrease by yet another $10k sucks, because it means we still owe exactly what we could sell it for and are therefore stuck living here a while yet. On the other hand, it also means a much lower tax bill. I think Lin won’t be too upset about it. It’s not like we were going to sell the house and move this year anyway.

I’m going to have to do some snooping around at the appraisal office web site this weekend and see what the neighobors’ houses are appraised at now. If it’s the whole neighborhood that has gone down, like last year, I’m not going to be too upset about it. If it’s just our cranky old house, well … I might be a bit disturbed.

Still … it’s a LOT lower tax bill than last year, and I can’t help but feel happy about that at least.

I guess I better go to bed now. Lin went to bed a few hours ago, and I stayed up to watch the last DVD of Return of the King. I’m sort of hoping that even though we have to do yard work this weekend, we can squeeze in a little low-cost fun, like a picnic. I’m in the mood for a picnic.

We had another huge storm blow through late last night. Luckily by the time it reached us, it wasn’t tossing out hail anymore and the worst of it passed just to the north and south of us. I’m not entirely certain why storms tend to do this (split when it gets to us with really bad stuff on either side), but I suspect it has something to do with us living on a bit of a hill. At any rate, I was thankful we only got a lot of hard rain and a little wind. The lightning was sure impressive though and a little scary, and as expected when the worst of it hit, we ended up without electricity. Still need to get a battery operated radio. I hate sitting in the dark not knowing what is going on. This time I had gotten up and watched plenty of the weather reporting, so I knew it wasn’t going to be a terrible storm when it got here, but had I been more asleep when the first rumbles of thunder started, I might not have gotten to the TV in time to find out what to expect. Sometimes these storms just come from out of nowhere.

I have to comment on News 8 Austin’s meteorology team. First off, they must have recently updated their radar software. It’s just phenomenal and fascinating the way they can zoom in all the way down to street level, show you all the lightning strikes, hail and potential tornadoes live … and the estimates they are able to make on when a severe storm is going to reach your area are spot on. Also the weather guys themselves are really great at using said high-tech software and explaining, warning and getting the general word out on bad weather. Kudos to the News 8 crew! I hope everyone has a local weather team that is this top-notch and on-the-ball.

I finally went and did the shopping today. Lin announced we are having a severe budget crunch, so I had to cut my already short list down even shorter. I wasn’t all that heartbroken about that, not wanting to spend more time at the store than absolutely necessary, until I got to the store and saw just how little my budget was going to allow me to toss into the basket. I do remember a time not so long ago though when being able to spend $45 on groceries was a blessing, so I am not really complaining. This is just a temporary thing, and in a week or two, I’ll be able to restock everything again. At least the fridge is full of fresh veggies again. I hate it when we are out of salad fixings.

So the weekend arrives again. Being mostly broke, I guess we’ll be hanging about the house and doing some yard work. I’m sort of hoping the DVDs we ordered last week get here tomorrow so we’ll have some new movies to watch. Not that we have caught up on the stack that needs to be watched yet, but most of them now are ones Lin isn’t all that interested in seeing. I think you’d have to strap him down and prop his eyes open with toothpicks to get him to watch an old black-and-white movie. That’s a shame, because some of the older movies are FAR better than the stuff coming out these days.

I also need to finish those art cards for the swap this weekend. I meant to have them done and in the mail this week, but the cat, who is no longer hiding under the workbench and is back to getting into things he shouldn’t, chewed two of them to bits. How’s that for an art critique?! Silly cat. I’d be angry, but I’m really just glad he isn’t moping around anymore acting like he’s about to die. I think he’s even put on a wee bit of weight, which is wonderful. I don’t understand how he can have diarrhea every day all day and be so much healthier than he was when he was eating the right foods and didn’t seem sick at all, but I guess I am just doomed to deal with it for the life of the cat. He’s worth it, and as the plaque in the living room attests, this house is maintained for the happiness of the cat. Perhaps sadly, this is entirely true. So if the cat is happiest eating crappy food and having diarrhea, so be it. Who am I to argue with the true king of the household?

I think I’ll go watch a little more of Return of the King. I’ve been watching about 30 minutes or an hour of the Lord of the Rings movies every day or so for the last few weeks. There hasn’t been much of anything to watch on TV, so I’ve turned LOTRs into a TV series of sorts. One of these days I want to sit down and watch all three in a row, but really … twelve plus hours of LOTRs may be too much for even me, and I’m a huge Tolkien fan. In fact, twelve plus hours of anything would probably make me crazy. I just can’t sit still for that long and maintain focus on watching something.

The cat is now whining. Must be time to go love on him and toss his toys around for a while. He’s so damn spoiled.