Driving in Rain

So driving rain and shitty visibility made me late for work today. Then a last minute project made me late leaving work and even worse rain and shittier visibility (along with tornado warnings) on the drive home, I figured I was coming home to a flooded basement. Out of my den for weeks, etc.

The waters did fill the garage but stopped there, and they'd drained away leaving a merely wet floor. I was relieved and also guilty because I have family in Houston who are probably going to be lucky if they don't get flat-out flooded by Ike. Including my amazing luthier uncle, and his music room full of amazing handmade instruments he's built.

And I know I shouldn't be indifferent to the suffering of strangers, and I flatter myself that I'm not. But it's always worse when it's your own people. That's why America intervened in Bosnia's genocide but won't in Sudan's: Bosnians looked like (white) Americans, and while hundreds of thousands of black corpses in mass graves is appalling, it doesn't get political traction in a country that jails millions of people for using drugs while being black. We may be about to elect a black president but would Obama still be in the hunt if he admitted he's smoked grass 'but didn't inhale?'

Damn, talk about a digression.

I had a fine birthday all in all. Except for the three hours I spent driving in the rain, and getting held up at work so I was late picking up my kids. I got a couple of phone calls and e-cards from friends who's birthdays I don't know (I need to fix that!), had a nice lunch on the boss at Waldo Pizza.

Then Mo asked for a second grilled cheese this evening, only to feed the sandwich to the dog and ask for more Oreos. I usually won't give her more than three Oreos in an evening, and those only after dinner. Four if I'm feeling punchy and don't want to leave just one in the sleeve.

So her quest for more cookies was dubious in any case, and she knows it, but she also knows it's not a choice to feed her food to the dog. The dog gets plenty of table scraps, leftovers that I put in his bowl, but left to her own devices, Mo will do a 'one for me one for you' deal that wastes food and encourages the dog to beg obnoxiously.

So then when I wouldn't give her the cookies, she proceeded to scream, bite herself, bite me, and spit on the floor until she earned herself a timeout for further bad choices.

A timeout she filled with plaintive requests for cookies and outbursts of the same behaviors that got her in the time out chair, thus earning her additional minutes in the chair. About twenty minutes by the time it was over.

Yikes.

Hope Ike takes it as easy as a monster storm can take it on all those folks down in Texas and Louisiana and whatnot.

What a rambling-ass blog post. Ah well.