Mouse! I ... don't know if I could have eaten there.

sara, I like CoverGirl Lashblast. It's in a fat orange tube.

Did Maybelline discontinue Full'N Soft? mascara I can't find it anywhere.

I don't think so -- I bought the waterproof version a week or two ago at the grocery store.

Well, I've been paying my own damn insurance this whole time, so I guess I could freelance as a packer/organizer while looking for a job with insurance. I am leery of going into anyone's home that I do not know though, so what, referrals only? Start with church people and friends and get the word out? I could TOTALLY do that. I should see what people charge, but I guess anything that covers more than gas would be better than sitting on my buttocks.

If it weren't for the insurance, I'd suggest you go freelance as a fixer. Personal packer, organizer, planner, cleaner, plotter.

I have idle daydreams of importing msbelle to Seattle for a week or so to help me get organized. It would be amazing.

Considering that xmas morning we awoke to a kitchen awash in insulation (seriously, a pillow's worth) and it being Bama, resigned to mice, much as I am resigned to rats in the alley here. Though I really think their kitchen bandit is a fucking squirrel. They've tried every type of poison and trap. No luck.

My father will never cease to confuse me. We finally got his Christmas cards. K-Bug and I each got a check. CJ got a note in his card that extra money has been added to his college fund. (a) Ok, that is nice and (b) my dad started a college fund for CJ? Yes, K-Bug had one that covered her first year of college so I shouldn't be surprised. But it is still the first time I've heard of this.

DO IT, msbelle. Part of the beauty of you packing for me was that it was fairly impersonal (except for the part where you had to talk me down/make me go away knowing my freakishness.) You have the knack for knowing when to query, when to not. And frankly, the shit I can't find? I packed it. Your system was awesome.

Holy crap, Cheetah just died. The original Cheetah from the 1930s Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies: [link]

I like that Cobb evidently thought the interviewer was a bit of wack anthropomorpher, or whatever you call the people that imprint personhood too firmly onto animals.

Let them be free. Personhood isn't that great anyway.

Going to visit an aunt-in-law once-removed tomorrow morning, before the beach, I think. I haven't spoken to her much, since I had an acrimonious parting with one of her daughters. Like, public and hostile with threats. But she's had a stroke, and her husband is ill, and our times in Jamaica are coinciding, so I'm going to try and make the most of that and see her tomorrow morning.

She sounded just awful on the phone--the sort of awful that makes you feel guilty for even bothering with the niceties of "How are you?" Man, rough, rough, rough.

Walked into my parents arguing. The election is soon. My mother and sister are voting third party, and my father's not voting. That's how bad the two main choices are--Portia's stance on buggery notwithstanding. No one on her side can work out why she suddenly supported homosexuals. There have been rumours of bribes, because it's political suicide, right before the election. Some external gay lobby putting pressure to bear.

Either way, no one in my immediate family is going for the big two. My sister, at least, figures she's really voting for the next election, if she can help this currently small third party be more of a factor at the next poll. So she's playing the long game. My father, on the other hand, insists that democracy includes the vote of "FUCK YOU ALL, YOU SUCK, I HAVE THE FREEDOM TO TELL YOU ALL TO SUCK IT." So he won't be voting, because there isn't a candidate he doesn't feel works actively against his vested interests and what he sees as best for the community and the island and his future. Nothing. And he doesn't see it as an opportunity to lay building blocks, like Sav does.

Should be interesting. Luckily I'm leaving early that day. They can be...feisty.

In other non-geriatric chimp news, I spent over two hours tonight scouring the net for good-sized Maxfield Parrish paintings. It's been years since I saw a big museum exhibit about him, and I'd sort of forgotten how breathtaking some of his work can be.