Bits & pieces

Went to bed last night before 10pm (and no, I did not watch the 'great debate', as I'd already said in another post) and woke up about 4:30 this morning. Six and a half delicious hours of sleep. May or may not have dreamed.


Got up and checked Milwaukee's score from last night. I knew that the Mets had lost, meaning we were still barely hanging on by a thread. However, the Cubs have decided that they can now coast to the end of the regular season, having secured their divisional first place finish recently. Milwaukee won. The Astros are out.

We did it to ourselves, really, but the 'godlike' commissioner of baseball didn't help. Right now I'm a little turned off by baseball in general. I don't foresee a post baseball season withdrawal coming, but one never knows, right?


Wrote my post on banking (not political -- personal), cruised through some of my "Favorites", and then went back to bed for a short nap. This nap, of one hour duration, produced a recurring dream with variations which I'll have to share with you another time.

It's kind of a weird combination of the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and my continuing to miss exits as a taxicab driver while transporting a family of three (He is here on business. His wife and mother-in-law [??] are accompanying him.) whom I have driven several times before.

At least one point during this dream, I woke myself up by talking out loud to one of my passengers!


Went into the other room to catch the tail end of the local news, where I heard a couple of updates about Ike's lingering effects.

1) There are a large number of baby squirrels being cared for currently by the SPCA. Boy, are they cute! The caretaker, in responding to a question about why the squirrels weren't scared, said, "Their hunger overcomes their fear." I have two squirrels in my back yard. If they had a baby or two that needed to be rescued, I didn't find it/them. (They are still here, by the way. They're continuing to throw acorns on my patio roof just as hard as they can to try and crack them!)

2) I've mentioned, a couple of times, about our problems due to traffic lights not yet having been restored. This morning's newscast stated that all traffic signals should be back to normal by November. (!?!)


Got my weekly "fix" when Gerald Treece came on for his 5-10 minute Saturday morning appearance where he starts off with a short monologue on the topic of the day -- in this case it was concerning the 150 e-mails he's been getting daily on problems concerning Ike -- and then takes questions from individual callers.

One of the callers had questions about insurance companies, what they cover/don't cover, how long must one wait for an adjustor to appear, etc.

I get a kick out of him. He cautioned that the caller must be prepared to wait. Settlements don't come right away, even if the adjustor is there within the hour.

Then he said that his insurance company hasn't shown up yet, but they've given him great hope that 'someday' they will!


He concluded by saying, "Don't get down, Astros fans. Spring training is only five months away. There's always next year!"



PS. I haven't seen a cockroach since Ike. (Knocking on wood like crazy.) Now there's a mixed blessing for you!