Salamander
Fire Walking

Comfortable, familiar, and wearing a little thin. At least my cable is up and working tonight. Kitten asleep on the lap. The Socialist informed me tonight that she's no kitten, but she's still a third smaller than the other two, and when she sleeps on my lap she makes a burbling noise. She might be on adult formula cat chow, but between the ears she's still very much kitten.

Borders helped me part with a significant chunk of change. I got two low salt cook books, both of which looked like they were designed for reasonable kitchens with reasonable ingredients. Somehow, I doubt I'm going to be able to easily find sodium-reduced cheddar cheese. And I refuse to turn my life into a game of running around to six different groceries and three different specialty stores.

I also got China Mieville's newest book, The Scar. I'm still not sure if I liked Perdito Street Station or not, but his writing style has me intrigued enough to try some more. I'll probably also end up getting King Rat by him eventually, but this book should last me a good long time ... his is not light reading.

And, because I don't know enough to stay out of the music section when I'm in a spending mood, I got a couple of Garnet Rogers CD's. He's the younger brother of the late Stan Rogers, and sounds eerily like him. The music he plays is different from what his brother used to write, though. It's less "homey" and more poem. One of the CD's has the song on it "The King of Rome", about a man who raises racing pigeons.

In the West End of Derby lives a working man
He says "I can't fly but me pigeons can
And when I set them free
It's just like part of me
Gets lifted up on shining wings"
I know absolutely nothing about racing pigeons, but I love that song.

I also stopped by a nursery that's immediately adjacent to Borders, and bought flower planters. For more money than I should be spending, of course. Three oval planters of orange I-don't-know-what's and two large mixed planters now adorn my walled garden. I can see them while I'm working in the kitchen, when I have the blinds to the door pulled open and it brightens the look of the place considerably. It's starting to look like whoever lives here cares.

Sad news in my in-bin today - SatireWire has apparently pulled the plug on their site. I'm going to miss them. It was one of the few truly funny satire spots on the web, with a truly equal handed approach to the day's news. Everybody/everything got lampooned in its time. There was no subject sacred, no country exempt, no person out of reach of their virtual-pens. RIP, SatireWire.

The Socialist starts teaching classes today. I will be left alone to my own devices for the day - the first large stretch of time I've had to myself since I got out of the hospital. I don't know if that frightens me, or if I'm looking forward to it.