I slept pretty well last night, but got a phone call from my upstairs neighbor at 2pm, just as my alarm was going off. He's 88 now and legally blind and wants me to set someone up to clean his dryer vent. As it happens, I have a coupon for that, for someone I haven't used before. The company I used the last three times were great the first time but not very good the next two and I had to have them come back partway through the year. I'm not comfortable having him have the one I'm using because I have a coupon. Plus, my vent only requires a few steps of a short ladder, and his would require an extended ladder and it might cost more than their normal price, much less the coupon. And to do it properly, they have to come inside and blow air out, then outside and pull air out, and I don't know if he'd want someone to come in. So I told him I'd have mine done and talk to the contractor and then let him know how it went.
Then I took the trash and recycling out, mailed a survey at the post office, stopped in a church parking lot to close the side door*, got a big bag of dry cat food from PetSmart, and stopped for dinner at Ruby Tuesday. I couldn't finish what I usually eat there -- white bean chicken chili soup and loaded baked potato -- but I hadn't eaten in 15 hours and I was already very tired.
When I got home I sat in the recliner for a bit and then hauled the rolling cart into the guest bathroom because the last time I left it out until it's time to start it, Junie managed to get past the top layer of paper. I shut it away in there. I checked email and then slept with Spirit for two and a half hours, and then came back here.
Mississippi govenor Haley Barbour has also issued a Confederate History Month without the anti-slavery bit, but he says everybody should know that. As WashPost columnist Eugene Robinson says The governor of the state whose population includes the nation's highest percentage of African Americans believes it is appropriate to "honor" those who fought for the Confederacy.
I talked about how McDonnell, the Virginia Governor, was going to make non-violent felons who were out of prison write essays about what they've done and their church and communities and so forth in order to vote again. The State sent out hundreds of letters about that to the non-violent felons. But today, oops, they were sent by a "well-meaning staffer" who didn't realize it was a draft policy. But last week, two of McDonnell's staffers said it was going to happen in an interview with the WashPost. Sounds like a little backing off.
There was a note in the Post yesterday about Adam Clayton Powell IV trying for Rangel's seat and in it, his father is Jr. I looked that up in the wikipedia and down in the Personal section, I found that they did it the wrong way: in order of children born (with different wives) rather than generational.
*The side door of the van gets used so infrequently that you have to either tug very hard while also pulling out, or tug a couple of times and drive until it starts rattling loose. Apparently the shop tried to get in yesterday because as I was driving, I noticed the door wiggling loose and stopped at the first safe place to open it and pull it shut properly.
Tags: cats, dryer vent, errands, essay, food, politics generations, sleep
