When I was heading out the door this morning I discovered my Mighty Huntress had left me another of her trophies. This one will improve the gene pool of tufted titmice. I think. She'd been snacking on it somewhat, but the feathers were motly gray.

And she left it right where I usually put a foot.

Luckily, I spotted it in time. And, speaking of time, I didn't have enough to go back inside and get some thing to pick it up with and move it to the garbage.

It was still there when I got home, except that it looked like it had been snacked on some more.

It's there now, but it's at the top of tomorrow's to-do list.

I spent today tallying those cards. There were four questions and I tallied them individually by each of the four, then by each of the possible combinations of them. The archivist is pleased--she's ready to use this stuff in an analysis of whether the differences in responses (if there are indeed differences) from the various age groups is related to women's issues. And the age groups responding went from graduating class of 1911 through 1986. It should be interesting.

When I'm done tallying I'll do up some graphs and charts.

A year ago today, at this hour, we were creeping towards Monroe, LA. The traffic was so slow that we saw a woman get out of a car in another lane and walk her dog. They were faster than the cars.

And we are all breathing a collective sign of relief that Ernesto is being downgraded again and again--and is curving more and more to the east. Florida may get by with a low level tropical storm.

Speaking of creeping along--on my way home this afternoon I saw the Presidential motorcade as it made its way into New Orleans. Luckily, I was going in the opposite direction or I would have been not moving at all. I haven't figured out why they were heading west into New Orleans--the airport is on the other side. Maybe they had toured the eastern part of the city and were heading to a fancy dinner in town? At any rate, significant numbers of cops had halted the westbound I-10 traffic a good half mile before where the prez and his entourage got on the interstate. It looked like every motorcycle cop in the city was on his bike, ahead of the group, by the group, etc. And since it was almost 5 PM the cars were getting massively backed up. A bunch of people were out of their cars, probably trying to see what had brought the total halt.

I don't recall hearing about the pending traffic tie-up, but maybe routes aren't announced for safety's sake.

It was moderately impressive. And, come to think of it, probably the closest I've been to a president.


I wonder what the cat will have for me tomorrow.