I wrote the title for Tuesday, the tenth anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and it's too good not to use. It's hard to believe it's only been 10 years. It was harder to believe in 1989, though. It seemed like the Wall had been up forever. Books and movies depended on the Wall as a plot device. In reality, I was fairly cognizant in 1960 when the Wall was built but it just seemed to have ALWAYS been there. It was totally amazing to see it being taken down. Here is Dionne's followup, and Krauthammer on the subject.

Tuesday Crombie went missing for a while. Normally I let them out in the morning and call them in after about an hour. This is all backyard, though Crombie has explored the front a little. Usually they are up in the mulberry. Fitch comes down a limb onto the doghouse and so in, and Crombie is prone to jump from the "platform." Tuesday, Fitch came in, but no Crombie. I heard the people behind us, so if she had decided to fish for ice cubes in their pool, they would have noticed. The dogs, such as they are, were out in the neighbors' yard, so she most likely wasn't there. I looked in the back. I looked in the front. I called. Again, the back, the front, and yet again, the back and the front. I walked a little ways down the street. I called. After about 30 minutes of this, she suddenly appeared from under the mulberry. I can only figure she didn't feel like coming.

I walked about half a mile, at Paradise Beach, Wednesday. We saw a great blue heron up close, one dead salmon, one live fisherman in the middle of the River, and a number of birds. There was a HUGE group of crows. Normally this would be a "murder" of crows, but in this case there were so many it was probably a "massacre." Today, on my walk with Sailor (1.8 miles) it was flocks and flocks of magpies. I have no idea what a group of those is, but I know you tell your fortune by how many you see.

One for sorrow, two for joy,
Three for a girl, four for a boy,
Five for silver, six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told.

Tuesday I stopped at Loretto to pick up our Entertainment book (we saved about $80 with it last year, so the $40 was worth it) and one of the women quizzed me rather closely about Rich's condition. They sent a get-well card, too. I was wearing my Stop Plate Tectonics sweatshirt and the receptionist enjoyed it. Someone at the bookstore also commented on it.

I figure Wednesday's walk, to the museum and around it, was at least a mile. Clinton disgraces himself every Veteran's Day.

Bernadette has set a tentative date for her wedding. Clinton will still be in office. Yuck. She's also not going to do it in our church, darn it darn it darn it. Her rationale is good, that his dad and grandparents can't travel, but still. You'd think it was HER wedding or something. She was baptised in St. Philomene's, she attacked people coming down the aisle to shake her hand for years, there was a lady who kept giving her things for her doll, she was an altar server. These people would have loved to have her married there, too, as would I.

While I'm ranting about King William the Rapist (it seems that if Starr could have stood William Ginsberg, Our Boy Bill would have been out), he talked this week about how he had bravely "saved the Constitution." By, it appears, perjury and obstructing justice. Even the Washington Post disagrees.
"Innocent people in three continents have died to keep Bill Clinton in office" Christopher Hitchens has said. The New York Times has even noticed that what do you know, he wagged the dog with the Sudanese on the day Lewinsky testified.

Oh, well, it's 14 months and 8 days more. Back to the important things I'm doing here. In Tripeaks I am back to 10 points per game. I've not been playing it as much since my SETI@Home is working! I hated seeing that blank screen. Now I'm nearly 30% finished with this data block.

Yeah, yeah, I know everyone else has had this, but allow me my fun, eh? I've really truly been frustrated at not being able to help find ET. Now that I can, allow me to revel. Popular Science honored it as one of the 100 best science-technology achievementss of the year.

Not only is it keeping me from TriPeaks, but I haven't been playing Tomb Raider. Even worse, I have never even STARTED Eleventh Hour!

I took down the pumpkin and put up a new cat toy. This one has bells, feathers, and is educational, as well. It spells out "C-A-T" on the string. They're having fun with it.