Kittens, yard work, comic books, and Palin resigning?

This morning I took Bowie for her one-month visit to the vet. She's fine, though she has a mild infection in one eye, and I have to give her drops 2-3 times a day.

I planned to mow the lawn today, but just as soon as I got changed into clothes that I didn't mind getting covered with grass it began to rain. Hard. One of the pop-up storms we'd been expecting. Fine, switch to plan B: head out to comic book store to pick up whatever had arrived for me. (Yes, I've become a regular.) On the way there I drove through two or three more mini-storms, and ditto on the way back. In between storms the sun came out and dried everything off.

I confirmed it was raining at home and meandered a bit on my way back. I stopped at Taco Bell for the first time in about twelve years and ordered two chicken burritos and a Piña Colada slushie. Then I stopped at Kmart to try to get a replacement for my telephone headset, which has come apart in the past week. (Couldn't find a good one.)

After a few more stops I came home and began mowing the lawn. I got the whole front done before another pop-up storm rolled through. These tend to be brief but intense - even now I'm hearing police scanner reports of wires down and storm sewer covers blown off. (There's a lot of that going around.) As the first drops began to fall I dumped my last load of grass clippings around the base of a blueberry bush and hustled the lawnmower back into the garage.

Coming up the steps I could hear the TV chattering away about some woman in politics who felt she had been treated unfairly by the media. Who? Nancy Pelosi? Hillary Clinton? The cuckolded wife of the governor of South Carolina? How would this be considered newsworthy?

As I looked at the TV I saw a familiar face, and the words PALIN STEPPING DOWN AS ALASKA GOV. across the bottom of the screen.

What? I had just been reading some analysis that reiterated that the smartest things Sarah Palin could have done, post election, would be to hunker down, drop out of sight, focus on being governor of Alaska, and bone up on foreign and domestic policy for the next few years, preparing herself for another run in 2012. Instead she has managed to stay in the media spotlight, most recently by either developing a very thin skin (especially for a politician, especially especially for a politician as ruthless and cutthroat as Palin is said to be) or strategically picking fights in the media by taking very public umbrage at selected offenses. A strategy for portraying herself as the persecuted populist hero, perhaps.

Resigning as governor of Alaska is certainly a WTF?* moment.

What made it worse is the fact that the sound was on, and I was assailed by the nonsensical, rambling word salad of her resignation announcement. I will try to get my hands on an unredacted copy. It will be interesting to try to diagram some of her sentences.



So. Now we get to wonder what the hell Sarah Palin has planned next. Meanwhile, I suppose I should have gotten a board and sleeve for the Barack the Barbarian comic I picked up. It was the one with the alternate cover. I think it may have just increased in value!


*"What the frig?" See here for more information.