Monday Maelstrom

That's shorthand for immediate, unrelated bursts of scatting from my cerebral region. First, the pope. Listening to a short radio broadcast from last week's funeral, the latent Catholic girl in me was moved to tears - that is, until I realized what a wasted opportunity his term of leadership had been. Imagine how possible it would have been for a charismatic, intelligent, poet/playwright/religious leader to have moved the Catholic Church into a position of relevancy in the 21st Century had he chosen to do so. A bit of messing about in the yard yesterday resulted in this addition to the neighborhood. Check out updates at threadingwater on the construction and knit pages. And finally, an article today about women in Afghanistan learning to drive reminded me of the scientific experiment I performed on our long driving trip to Texas. I can now prove that is physically imposible to sing along with Janis Joplin on "Me and Bobby McGee" while maintaining the posted speed limit. To all my Afghani sisters, remember that great lyrical line, "freedom is just another word for nuthin' left to lose," and get out there with the big boys drivin' fast and braking hard. You've earned the right.