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The beautiful and illustrious Jane came over last night and helped me rescue a kitten trapped in my fence.  The poor baby had his hind leg stuck between two slats of the wooden fence and was just hanging around crying… We got him out, gave him some food and water and he rested in a carrier overnight.  This morning, I spent way too much of my time and money at the vet’s getting him x-rayed and tested.  Jane may or may not take him.  If she doesn’t, I’m hoping someone else can take him in.  I am going to arrange to have him neutered, but I don’t think I can pay for the vaccinations… Is anybody interested if Jane can’t take him?  He’s between 7 and 8 weeks old and I think I’ll be able to socialize him fairly quickly.  He’s already stopped hissing everytime I get close and he even purred for me earlier today!  I’m going to bathe him tonight and will give you a picture if you want to know more. 

Oh, and I’m trying to decide on a name.  So far, there’s the classic “Lucky” option.  I’ve also considered “Trois”, as in the number three in French.  You know, cause that’s how many legs he’s got working for him right now…  Of course, it’ll be only a matter of days before that changes.

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So, Burger King is doing this Campaign for Your Cause to support local groups.  My sister emails me this and asks me to please go vote for City Park.  One can hardly object to this cause. 

City Park suffered a lot of damage from the storm and has been having a lot of trouble bouncing back.  I went out to the golf course a few weeks ago.  It looks more like a forest with broken down paved paths now that a golf course.  It’s certainly beautiful, but not what it was intended to be.  Many of the other park services are operating on limited budgets still and there’s still a ton of cleanup left that they just don’t have the money for.

 So, I forgot about it for a few days and then she sends me a gmail message: Did you vote for City Park today?  Then… I look at the results.  Now, I have nothing against private schools for wealthy girls, but I really don’t think that their need is greater than City Park at this time.  Please go to http://www.campaignforyourcause.com/ and click Vote for New Orleans and vote for Friends of City Park.  You get one vote per day, so please try to go back every day.

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While I was up in Dallas, one of those good looking Tyler Guys gave me a copy of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  Sometime during Chapter IV, I became hooked and I’m having trouble putting it down.  Darn you, Wuss!  I have things to do! 

I have a small problem with this book.  It’s not the contents of the book troubling me, but some images from another book… I KNOW that I have read a book (or story) which unabashedly references this book, even going so far as to have the characters talk about the book.  One of the characters has a building made and places a statue of Atlas in the lobby or atrium or some other large central room…  Only, I can’t for the life of me remember what this other book is.  Every page I turn, I can see quick flashes of images from this other book, but I can’t remember names of characters or places.  Can anybody help me here?

Some of the images I can see are:

In the opening scene, the main character is on top of the tallest building in the city.  He is at the highest point of the building.  Something tells me that this building is his.  He is looking out upon the city as if he owns it or is preparing to own it all.

At some point, there is construction (for his grand building?) and there’s something about a bomb.  This bomb is cylindrical and rolls along something, but why?  Does it go off?  I can’t remember…

There are only vague images in my head, like it’s a book I read half awake many years ago.  I really want to know the name of this book so that I can get a copy (or find it on my bookshelf) and read it when I’m done with Atlas Shrugged.  Plus, I need to buy a copy for Wuss…

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For some reason, a lot of people down here seem to be reprocessing our “collective experience” with each other lately.  This might be because there are some new guys at work and part of the process of “getting to know” each other’s stories means we have to share this part of our lives with each other.  Everybody has their “story” that we share with new friends, but in our cases, there’s a shared story we can all relate to.  I think part of this reprocessing is that so many people are finally detached from it enough that it becomes a little easier to process.  We can relive it without quite smelling it again…  We can laugh at it now.

I was chatting with one of the Tyler Guys on Tuesday when he asked for a refresher on my timeline of moving in relation to The Storm (kinda like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or something).  Plenty of guys up there asked me for bits of my “story”, but for some reason, this one conversation changed my view of it dramatically.  He didn’t ask for nearly as much detail as some of the others (ahem, Mike).  It was really a rather simple question.

“How long had you been back when it happened?”

“A month.  Very nearly to the day.”

“Wow.  What bad luck.”

I nodded.  Yes.  Bad luck.

But, it made me think about my reasons for moving back and why it is I’m “done” with this city now.  I think, in many ways I had to come back in time for it.  I think I had wonderful luck to go through this. 

Most of you know that I went off to boarding school for my junior and senior of high school.  What you probably haven’t thought about his how this means that I pretty much moved out of my parents’ home at the age of 15.  Sure, I went home one weekend a month and I had three summers with them afterwards, but those weren’t exactly pleasant times.  I left my family in the middle of a crisis.  In many ways, I felt I abandoned them to pursue my own opportunities.  Then, I come back 11 years later just in time to be with them through this crisis.  I think that’s why I came back.  Now, the crisis is over and it’s time for me to pursue what I need for me again.

To quote our Grandpappy, “I’ve always known it was just a matter of time…”

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So, I took this trip up to Dallas for about a week.  It really gave me an interesting perspective on where I’ve been in the last two years and where I’m going, etc.  As happens all too frequently, my greatest moment of inspiring self-observation came in the airport.

I was standing in line B waiting to board flight 2182 when I noticed this perfectly manicured woman sitting near me.  In her lap was one of those magazines that is full of pictures of celebrities and what they’re doing wrong with their wardrobes and love lives.  While I’m looking at this woman and her french pedicure, I can’t help but compare myself to her (women are conditioned to do this, I think).  Should I spend more time on my makeup?  Should I go to the beauty parlor to have my hair done more often?  Am I enough of a “woman”?  Then, I look in my hands at my book, laugh and think, nah, I think I’ll stay this way.  Surely, something must be said for a woman who’s inclined to read The Elegant Universe in the airport…  And it’s probably not, “I can’t believe her toenails haven’t been painted in the last week!”

No, I will never be the kind of woman that other women compare themselves to and say, “Do I waste enough time looking good?”  I’m OK with this…

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