Miscellanea

The local dead tree happy news "newspaper" drops free copies twice a week in our driveway. I always thought it was a marketing ploy to get people to subscribe for the other days but the last one they left on Thursday was the same one they dropped last Saturday so maybe it's just their way of disposing of their leftovers.

It seems we are no longer the fastest growing county in the entire country. (Honestly, I didn't know we ever were. I always thought whatever county Las Vegas is in held that dubious honor.) Anyway, we are now 33rd thanks to fracking North Dakota.

Which is just as well because when the big storm finally comes along, we're all boned. It could take 70 hours to evacuate our low-lying peninsula and the surrounding county. (We're pretty much in the middle of the peninsula and we're not 10 feet above mean sea level. In fifty years it won't make a difference.)

On the bright side, we caught the rat that's been eating the cat's food. My brother had been putting peanut butter topped with cat kibble on the trap but the rat was very good at cleaning it all off without triggering the spring. A piece of hot dog proved both irresistible and immovable. The cat, who prefers to sprawl under the oak tree all day pretending to be a lion lazing under an acacia on the Serengeti and couldn't be bothered to protect her own food supply, was curious enough to come over as I was disposing of the carcass. I told her if she wanted a rat of her own she'd have to catch it herself, so she went back under the oak for a nap.

Useless beast.