Any questions?

Oh, what a little sleep and a day of productive if pointless activity will do for a bleak mood. I think I'm almost caught up! That is to say, I still have a lot to do, but not so much that I'm in danger of missing any tax deadlines. Well, unless the Big One hits. One of these days California really will be an island, and I just hope my little house ends up on the top half.

I haven't completely given up on the news. How could I, on a day when a school bus disappears and magically turn up hundreds of miles away? Plus, Utah has declared war on North Carolina. The rest of the news consists of talking heads guessing what's going to happen to John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban, and saying the same things over and over. That makes it easy to tune out.

And how scared do you think those thirteen kids on the school bus were? I guess it would depend on what they thought of their bus driver. (I don't have to guess how the parents felt.) It'll all come out eventually. We'll know how serious it really was when we find out if the inevitable TV movie will be on USA Network or the Family Channel. I'm sure the Mariah Carey movie will be on Lifetime, but isn't it ironic that it was Glitter that caused her record company to buy out her contract? Prediction: She gets a huge ovation when she performs the national anthem at the Super Bowl. (Wow, that's going out on a limb, eh?)

The sun was shining when I got up this morning, and that helped. The birdbaths were frozen and the grass on the shady side of the house was still frosty white until late morning, but it was a good day for running a few errands. As it turned out, it was a good day for getting some work done, too.

The fax machine was fairly quiet for once, except for advertisements. You can't get off those lists, at least not for long. I get a lot of investment advice in the middle of the night. There it is the next morning, sitting in the fax tray, a page or two telling me how to make more money. Why they think I have any in the first place I'm not sure. I get invited to take part in a lot of bargain travel packages, too. Yeah, me, the hermit. How's that for a laugh?

Today it was an offer for a training manual to become a notary public. Once upon a time this would have been a brilliant idea, because I was running off to a notary two or three times a week, getting my signature certified on public bid documents and insurance indemnity letters. If I'd been a notary, I could have had the Boss sign the documents and notarized them myself.

Now we're not doing as much of that kind of bidding, so the need isn't as pressing. Besides, I don't think I can notarize my own signature, and I never see the Boss at all, so I could spend the $150 for notary training and never have occasion to use it. Or I could save the money and parcel it out ten or fifteen dollars at a time to a real notary. Yeah, that's probably the way to go.

I wheeled the big blue recycle container out to the curb this afternoon. I never thought I'd be able to fill it, unless I took up drinking. Most of the people who can fill up that much space with recyclable material probably drink a lot of beer and wine. Mine was filled mostly shredded paper. The only glass was instant coffee jars and diet root beer bottles.

One benefit of the big blue container as opposed to the plastic crates we used to use is that everything goes in one can, which has a lid you can close. Nobody driving by can see what you're putting out. I really could fall off the wagon again, and nobody would know if I were drinking Moosehead or Old Milwaukee. The answer would be both, if I went back to my younger, wilder days. You start out with the good stuff, and after a few of those the generic doesn't taste so bad.