I had a dream the other night that I was at a conference with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany. She was presenting a resolution to the UN suggesting that people that had committed murder or other violent crimes in their home country should not be allowed to be an ambassador to the UN.
After her presentation, she came over and asked me what I thought. I replied,
“Well, I would like to think that if a person had paid their debt to society they should then have the same rights as any other citizen, but I see your point about them having questionable judgement – so, I guess it’s given me something to think about,”
She nodded. “And that’s really what I was hoping to do – give people something to think about,”
And then I woke up. No idea what prompted that dream or what it was about – but she seemed nice.
———————–
I’ve finally gotten around to reading Stephen King’s “Under the Dome”. It was… ok. I kind of expected more from the 1,072 pages, but it less about the horror of the situation of being trapped in a dome and cut off from the world – and more about how quickly people can go from “kinda of an asshole” to “full blown assholerly”. And that’s really what it mostly about. A few good people and bunch of assholes led by an even bigger asshole.
Hmmm… where have we seen that before?
Anyway, it was okay but I’m not likely to read it again. It’s going on the “sell to half-priced booked for a pittance, but at least feel good about putting a book back into circulation so other people can enjoy it” pile.
I have very specific piles and shelves for my books.
—————————
I was at my computer in my office at home last evening and looked out the window to the roof over my patio in my backyard. I noticed some birds hanging out near the edge, then one of them vanished and came back up in a splash of water.
Ummm… yeah, gutters aren’t supposed to work like that.
I went out to investigate and sure enough, the gutter was full of leaves and water – and the opening to the downspout was blocked.
All the rest of the gutters on the house have a cover – except, oddly, the one that is easy to reach. If you’re going to cover the gutters, why not just do all of them?
So, I got some gloves, a bucket and a ladder and got the gutter cleared out before I lost the light.
Even though the leaves were kinda gross and decayed – and the water smelled pretty bad – I didn’t really mind doing the job of cleaning it out. It was a simple job and easy enough to do – would that all our tasks were that straight-forward and easy to resolve.
I sprayed it down with a hose for good measure and checked to make sure the water was draining to the street properly before I put my tools away and headed inside.
This evening I stopped at Lowe’s and got a plastic mesh cover that should do the job and I’ll get that put in place one of these days.
———————————
It’s been a quiet evening and the windows are open to cool breezes. Time for a cup of tea and good book on the porch.