There was, of course, an earthquake yesterday

I was sitting on my porch and I felt it. Some people quoted in the NYTimes and elsewhere state that their first thought was "bomb". (Various news articles all played up how close this earthquake is to you-know-when. Sigh.) My first thought was "subway train", which is absurd because there isn't any on Staten Island. (The SIRT doesn't count, being a train that's not sub anything, and anyway being not particularly near my house. I can just hear it at night, but that's because everything else is quiet.)

House creaked a little, but no more than it does in a good wind, and we get THOSE all the time! So I wasn't particularly worried once I figured out what was going on. Perplexed, but not worried.

In other news, there has been some not-at-all drama in the cat situation. She ambled out of our house the other day, and the boys down the block (the ones who aren't supervised at all that I can see) went "Oh, that's where she went! Nugget, come here Nugget!"

"Nugget" completely ignored them and went back in the house. The boys didn't speak to me about it at all at that time or since, so I'm taking their claim that this is their cat very casually. The way I see it, when your cat up and moves into another person's house for three weeks, and you don't so much as put a sign up, and she doesn't seem to want much to do with you... your claim is a bit weak. Which is what I told the nieces. I just want to continue to avoid any issue until both cat and kittens (any day now) are fixed. Kittens are adorable, yes (I've already laid down the law and told the nieces that ANYbody going NEAR those kittens until their eyes are open will be persona non grata around here for quite. some. time.) but there are plenty of them already in this world, really.

If you don't live in the US you might not know this

but we have people who honestly think taxing rich people is a bad idea. I don't know, it seems like common sense to me that the guy making 5 million a year should be taxed at a higher rate than the guy making 50k a year, because they'll still have more money left over when you're done... but some people don't know how to do math or something.

You may also not know that the US is in a bit of a budget situation. Not enough money, or maybe too much spending. (I can tell you where *I* would cut the budget! But were I dictator, I wouldn't care what the people thought.)

The same people who don't want to tax the rich have found a solution to this crisis. They're gonna tax the poor!

...

Some days, it's just not worth it to get out of bed. I assure you, if calling in sick were an option....