I have read quite a bit about the Senator Craig incident, and scores of comments.

Many people find themselves "disgusted," or offended at the breach of etiquette, or consider his behavior a breach of privacy. But I haven't seen one comment that mentioned the word "modesty."

Has the word totally dropped from the vocabulary?

My sense of modesty is offended by the whole notion of "stall sex" in public restrooms, and I suspect that's true for many others. But they no longer have the word to express it.

Alrighty, then. The new utility bill has come.

I am embarrassed to report that last year's usage for 7/13 to 8/13 was 2797 kW. This year's is 1848. That is a 32 nearly 34 percent improvement.

However, part of that decrease was due to July being unusually cool this year. We had many overcast or rainy days with below normal temperatures. The temperatures for the 12 or 13 days of August included in this bill were average or above, a few of them record highs.

Next month's bill promises to be the whopper this year. All of August has been hot.

While I have sealed the air supply boots to the drywall in the ceiling, I still haven't sealed the recessed can lights. That comes with painting the ceiling, which, as it turns out, has come back to me. And I haven't been up to it.

UPDATE: There should be some calculations I can do using degree days. Can any of you tell me how that would work? I'm thinking something along the lines of kW-baseload/degree days. Or something. Anything besides messing with fire-resistant caulk around the lights that I don't have trim-sets for.

I saw Boz Scaggs in Fort Worth when I was young woman, maybe 21. He was one sexy boy in his day. Here he is in 2004.

Ain't those backup singers cool?

Much to the chagrin of PETA, LSU has obtained a new tiger to become the mascot for the school.

Roscoe, soon to be renamed Mike VI, is a Siberian-Bengal mix who will grow to 700 pounds. At two, he's only 300 pounds.

Look at those paws.

He'll live here, and have the best veterinary care that LSU can offer.

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I missed the demise of the "Queen of Mean", who died on August 20.

She was generous to her friend.

It's not such a bad thing.

I'm ready to run errands.

I just finished a seven-day course of antibiotics and steroids after that vicious head cold descended into my chest. I'm confident that I can attend to business without horrifying the public by hacking up my spleen.

There is no virtue in my rising at 5:30 a.m.

I might have overcome the odd and weirdly familiar dream of all those blond people in the big house.

A bathroom run in the early hours isn't unusual or particularly disruptive.

But the mosquito was a particularly persistent and annoying one.

Hail to the mornin'. Now run along and leave me alone.

Welcome rain.

In her message, Charlotte included her cell number. I called and spoke to her.

She told me that she spoke to an owner who consulted an interior decorator regarding her one-bedroom condominium. The decorator said she would do it for $30,000, and quoted $3000 for a bedspread.

What makes a $3000 bedspread?

The bedspread at the condo is missing. The rental agency doesn't know why.

But do you know what? I just received a note from Charlotte today. She's now at Island Interiors.

I might even have Youngblood Hawke on the bookshelf. It was one of my father's books.

I lived in New York City between fall of 1978 and Christmas of 1983. Mr. Drum, in the city were two or three Mexican restaurants, none of them good. It was easier to find good Cajun food there than Mexican, or for me, Tex-Mex. What was the name of the place on Ninth Avenue? Or was it Tenth?

I transferred my love of spicy Tex-Mex to Indian without much regret.

Now the spicy comes from Cajun, and I miss both the others.

Oh, Mr. Edwards, please get real:

Will we halt global warming, protect our environment and humanity from the cataclysmic consequences of inaction and leave our children a livable world rich in the resources that were left to us?

One way to start is to not build a 28,000 square foot housing and recreation complex for a single family on previously timbered land.

Just a thought. I know that's small potatoes in the big scheme of things, but I've always understood it helps if we each do our small part.

You Are a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

You life your life in a free form, artistic style. You are incredibly creative and at times, quite messy. Deep down, you are a kid at heart. And you aren't afraid to express it. Your best friend: The Grilled Cheese Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Club Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

(Thanks, Diane.)

The Chauncey Bailey story gets uglier everyday.

Here's something from BET.

More from the San Francisco Chronicle.

I clean my bathroom floors on my knees.

Yesterday, when I went in to finish up the floor in the back, there was a tiny pink lizard, about 1-3/4", underneath the kick space of the vanity.

I looked around, and the only thing I could find to contain it was an empty Rolaids bottle. So I chased it around and picked it up, and put it outside on the grass.

I thought, "All that calcium can't be good for a baby." So I changed the faucet to "mist" and washed him down.

I hope I didn't drown him.

How did he come in? The windows are sealed. He was 60 feet from a door.

Kate has news!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this little guy expresses my reaction to the truncation of Terry Oglesby's Possumblog.

I found this charmer at National Geographic News.

Charlie is having fun working on Mr. Wolf. We're using the lone wolf howl example #1 here.

Ahem. Mr. Reynolds, if your wife is going to put good knives in the dishwasher, I'd suggest going with the Forschners. They're inexpensive and easy to replace.

I'm still working with my 10-inch Calphalon, but it is heavy. I plan to replace it with a Forschner when necessary.

Maybe I'll purchase a 12-inch for Christmas. That will keep the boys in line.

At the recommendation of a young man who works offshore, I have added Crown Weather Services to my bookmarks.

Lucy laid another egg last night. Let's say August 16.

I've been reading police procedurals authored by Peter Robinson.

I'm not reading them in sequence, so I was surprised to find that Inspector Banks and his wife Sandra are separated in this book. I didn't see it coming. Last I read, they were getting along fine.

What is it with these crime writers who divorce or kill off spouses? Are they undergoing similar trauma in their own lives? Wishful thinking?

Lucy laid an egg on August 13 or 14. (Sometime during that night.) It was her first since June.

High temperatures on August 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 broke records in Vidalia.

Our thermometer showed a high of 105F yesterday, three degrees above accuweather.com's posted high.

No rain in sight to cool things down.

Today the meter reader comes.

I looked up the method to read our five-dial electric meter, and if my reading is right, we'll come in at least 25 percent below last year's electric usage for this month. That will mean a savings of near $70 or more on the bill, which should arrive about the 20th.

Now we're talking. It's been warm all of August so far and screaming hot the past four days, with several more top temperatures expected this week.

If I'm reading it wrong, the things we've done have actually raised our energy usage over last year's, and I can't believe that.

UPDATE: At 1:48 p.m., our thermometer is showing 103F.

I woke at 3:30 a.m. with a full-blown head cold.

It's been ages since I've had one, and I'm a big, whiny, snot-nosed baby.

Guests are due for dinner tonight.

Charlie's got the bonk.

I just noticed that he is 2-1/2 years old today.

(44 seconds)

So we tried something new in the kitchen last night, and it was quick and tasty.

We started with the "Linguine Roma" recipe on the side of a box of American Italian linguine and made a few changes.

1/4 cup olive oil
1 large chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
5 anchovy fillets, crushed
4 tbsp. capers
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 cup kalamata olives, roughly chopped
2 packets tuna, or 2 cans, drained
Salt and pepper to taste
Prepared linguine

Heat olive oil in a large skillet (we used a Dutch oven). Saute onion until transparent.

Add garlic, anchovies and capers. Saute for one minute.

Add tomatoes, red pepper, and olives. Simmer for 10 minutes or so. (Lyman added a little water here. He likes "juicy" food.)

Add tuna. Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer a minute or two.

Now you can either add the cooked pasta to the sauce, or spoon the sauce over pasta. We did the latter.

Nothing to it, and it was remarkably good for so little trouble.

Poor Lyman can't get credit for anything. Travis is his dad.

Boy, is the mail ever slow going out that way. A week?

I'll go back to read all of this post, but for now, I remember a conversation between the two oldest nephews in our family. It went something like this:

"And yeah, what about those girls who order a $25 steak from the menu, then eat a couple of bites?"

"Then they look at you like you're a cheapskate because you want a doggie bag."

Dr. Frank is watching the the Oakland case, too. I hadn't seen the article mentioned in this post.

He lives in Oakland.

Noooo!

Charlie went bonk again.

UPDATE: I don't know how he hit so hard, but his beak shows impact, too.

So he's been shaved a bit, and washed and Betadined and creamed and stuck with a needle, with the same routine coming up again tomorrow. But no collar!

Poor little birdie boy.

When is the last time I had a deep-fried pork chop?

Last night, if you must know, with a side of fresh green beans simmered with hamhock and new potatoes, fresh sliced tomatoes and hot-water cornbread.

Chris Thompson, the writer of the two stories cited below in the Chauncey Bailey murder, tells of intimidation by the Oakland group here.

And Christopher Hitchins has shot some people off on anti-Muslim tirades that aren't appropriate. Matt Zeitlin, unknown to me, and found through technorati.com, makes some sense.

Why am I ragging on Mr. Bailey's murder? Because killing the messenger isn't usually done in this country. Not this way.

UPDATE: An AP report on charges filed against the group.

I have to say, this massage chair looks more intimidating than relaxing.

It looks like a padded electric chair -- "Ol Sparky" goes upscale.

Or could be a "mandated-procedure" dental chair.

There is a curious story out of Oakland, CA, involving the murder of a newspaper editor.

When did we last hear of a newspaperman being murdered in the US because of his work? I can't remember.

UPDATE: Here is a story about journalists assassinated in the US.

UPDATE II: See the two articles mentioned in this comment to get a fix on the organization Mr. Bailey was investigating.

UPDATE III: Shanikka at Political Sapphire has a good round-up and a rant.

Jane Galt is a little off in this post.

Not having children is for me, a Nail-Patella mutant, a way of cleaning up the gene pool and avoiding a massive burden.

I have been successful in avoiding pregnancies all my life. It's called "contraception," and should be available to all at-risk women.

Now, motherly women of my status, women with the NPS genetic defect, have the option of in-vitro fertilization with a DNA scan to reject embryos that carry the gene.

I think that's good.

Who are you to chance the child I would have to rear?

Colby Cosh has posted an SCTV tribute to Ingmar Bergman.

I remember Count Floyd fondly.