Time to vote again, y'all.

Go here to vote for your favorite animal shelter and they could win $10,000!

Get your daily dose.

If you read this blog, then you know I love Cute Overload. Almost as much as I love the New York Times being online. This is one of my favorite posts to appear recently. There's something about this picture that just cracks me up.

Bookmark this website, y'all, if you haven't already. It'll make any day better.

Is it cold in here, or is it just me?

Fuzzy rides my bus. (He has short hair except for the big bald spot. His hair looks really soft. Petably soft. But it would be wrong to pet someone on the bus. It would be especially wrong to pet the blind guy on the bus. But I digress.) (Ahem.) He's a nice guy. He's blind. He wears a tan maintenance uniform, so he's presumably in the maintenance arts and sciences. He lives a couple of apartment buildings down from me. I think he knows Mr. Smith. Today, we had a new bus driver. He was new in the sense that not only has he not been driving the TTA bus long, but I'm not sure he's driven the 105 before. This new guy rolls up to where Fuzzy is, stops, opens the doors and sits there. If you saw a guy with one of those white canes with the red bottom, wouldn't you think, "hey, maybe that guy can't see very well?" Nope, not this guy. He sits there. Fuzzy has to ask what bus it is then nearly trips because he doesn't know this is an old bus with three steps up rather than a new bus with only one step. Fuzzy then goes to sit down in a seat occupied by a woman. She just sits there. She doesn't move or speak. Seriously, is she going to let him sit in her lap? The bus driver also remains mute. I speak up and say "the seat behind the driver is empty." Fuzzy recognizes my voice and we start chatting about how our days were. Nice guy, that Fuzzy. The bus driver and that woman? Not so much.

I'm still on the same bus when we roll on up to the District Drive Park and Ride. We stop and a woman runs over. "I'm sorry, but I just have a quick question. I left my phone on the other bus. What should I do?" To which the driver responds, "Well, I don't know, the bus is already gone." Surely he's kidding. He then says he can call the dispatcher, which he does. The dispatcher calls back and tells him to tell her to go to the lost and found. The driver asks the dispatcher if she can alert the other driver to this AWOL phone. The dispatchers response? "That's a negative, sir."

Tastes like chicken!

I walked over to the Vietnameese restaurant near my office to pick up some lunch. I ordered the spring rolls and pho with tofu and vegetables. I walked back to the office and immediately scarfed down the spring rolls because they are that good. I then opened the pho. It has chicken and broccoli, a few carrots and noodles. No tofu.

::cue losing trumpet sound:: wa, wa, waaaaaaaaaa.

I'm 23. Why do you ask?

Today is my birthday. All day, as Pappy would say. I'm...cough...hack...thirty...cough...six. Jesus, that seems old. As you can tell, I'm not happy about it. I am lucky to share a birthday with the now 12 year old son of two good friends. This means I get to pass the birthday buck, so to speak. To tell the truth, I really don't like being the center of attention, even if it's among people I know. It's nice that I can point to the kid and say, "but it's his birthday too!"

October 5th happens to be the most common birthday. More people are born on this day than any other. Cool, huh? I'm a statistic. Here's a short list of people with whom I share a birthday.

1829 Chester A Arthur
1902 Larry Fine*
1902 Ray Kroc
1917 Allen Ludden*
1919 Donald Pleasence*
1923 Glynis Johnson*
1951 Karen Allen
1954 Bob Geldof
1957 Bernie Mac
1957 Sid Vicious**
1965 Mario Lemieux
1965 Patrick Roy
1967 Guy Pierce
1972 Grant Hill
1975 Kate Winslet
1980 Paul Thomas*
1983 Nikki Hilton

*I really don't feel like looking these people up. Does anyone know who they are?

**On Sid...Wikipedia mistakenly has his birthday as March something. Rolling Stone Mag confirmed it as Oct 5 many years ago. While I find Rolling Stone suspect for their wanton worship of Fergie, I find Wikipedia suspect in every aspect.

Mary Jane and Mr. Smith

I live in a apartment building that was built in 1936. The majority of the residents of the building were little old ladies, until recently, due to, uh...well, the Circle of Life. One of these ladies is Mary Jane. She's 88, I think. She lives down the hall from me. She moved into her apartment fifty years ago. She's never been married, as far as I can tell. She does smocking by hand and makes the most beautiful dresses for her nieces. Mary Jane is damn near deaf as a post. She takes pictures of the residents of the building, which is really cool because she has a photographic history of the residents over the past 20 years or so. She is very active and just as sweet as can be. Mary Jane drives. (I hate that she has a nicer car than I do. Crazy, right?) Mary Jane drives Mr. Smith around.

Mr. Smith lives on the third floor, two floors above me. He has lived in the building since 1982, I think. He's in his late fifties. Mr. Smith is the nicest guy. He helps Mary Jane with her errands. A block or two down Hillsborough Street is another apartment complex, with a shut in resident. Mr. Smith runs all of her errands for her. When I was moving in, Mr. Smith offered to help. He made sure I met Mary Jane. His favorite movie is The Sound Of Music. He volunteers at a soup kitchen downtown. He worries about me going out after dark. Have I mentioned...Mr. Smith is blind? Yup. At least most of his life I'd guess, since he once mentioned going to the Governor Morehead School. About a month ago, I saw Mr. Smith on the front porch. He said he wasn't feeling well and that he'd been having digestive issues. He said he was going to the doctor the next day. About a week later, I ran into Mary Jane on the sidewalk. She mentioned Mr. Smith had to have surgery, but he was doing okay. I stopped by Snoopy's tonight to get a sandwich. I saw Mr. Smith walking around the corner with an older woman. I recognized him right away. When I got closer, I realized I didn't recognize the woman. When I looked again at Mr. Smith, I thought for a minute it wasn't him. He was so much skinnier than the last time I had seen him. He looked so small. It turns out it was his aunt that was with him on the walk. She will be staying with him while he goes through chemotherapy. Mr. Smith has cancer.

I can't believe it. He's so young! It isn't right that anyone gets cancer, but it seems especially unfair that this is happening to Mr. Smith.

Bye, Penny!

Penny and I have been chatting every day this week on the bus. We take the same bus in the morning and the evening. Turns out, she's super cool. She's from Texas, moved to Vermont where her husband is from. She worked on a farm once she got to Vermont. She's a landscape architect. She knits. She and her husband want to move to Pittsburgh at some point! She's smart, funny, sweet and creative, just what I like in a friend. Unfortunately, and for many more reasons that just this, her job ended today. She was an intern at a firm in Durham. This means I don't know if or when I'll see her again. Luckily, Raleigh is small enough that I might see her again.

It's a bummer. It was nice to have someone to talk to on the bus.

I don't think that's covered under the warranty.

If she says "maverick" again, I'm gonna pitch my TV out the window. Seriously.

Hope springs eternal, or so they say.

I had to run to Cameron Village tonight to pick up a couple things. I ran into the Village Deli to get a sandwich and ran into Stacy. Stacy used to work at my vet's office. She, like everyone there, is super sweet and Truman loved them. She asked if I still had Truman. I told her I did not. I think she left before he got really sick. I told her it was cancer after all, which was confirmed by the vet school. We laughed about how he was still a total chowhound even after he lost most of his teeth, apparently lost his eyesight, and in spite of the fact that both the regular vet and the oncologist vet said his appetite should start to go downhill. Stacy was as sweet as ever and admitted to not being sure if she should ask me. I told her it was okay. I also told her I was thinking about thinking about getting another cat, but I'm not quite there yet. I was okay after I got my sandwich until I got to the door. I then boohooed to the bus stop. It's been just over a year since he died, and longer since she worked there. She still remembered him. That's how cool he was. (And that probably shows how much I spent at the vet too!)

I made a pit stop at Great Outdoor to get a headlamp for my trips home from the art studio. I remarkably had a couple minutes to spare at the bus stop. As I was waiting I overheard a conversation about politics and the election between to younger African American guys. They started to talk to me too. It was interesting to hear their points of view were not that different from mine. It gives me hope.
_______________________________________________

This is one of my favorite pictures of Truman, rocking the candy necklace. He was the best cat. I miss him very much.

The 2008 North Carolina State Fair starts on October 16! You know what that means, don't you?

Circle C Racing Pigs - Sponsored by Ray Price Harley Davidson - Circle C Farm will bring the Hogway Speedway back to the Fair with its racing potbelly pigs, ducks and pygmy goats. Fairgoers can cheer on the farm animals as they hustle around the track, located near Gate 9, at 1, 3, 5, 7 & 9 p.m. daily.

Preview day races at 5, 7 & 9 p.m.

Yee haw, y'all.