Last night I dreamed about Flannery chasing mice. It was a good dream.
I attribute this to the fact that she sneezed into my face twice this past weekend. Some cultures believe that when you sneeze, a piece of your soul escapes, hence the origination of "God bless you" for sneezers.
It only makes sense, then, that little pieces of Flannery's furry little soul somehow transmitted into me and I would dream about her chasing mice. I'm really sort of curious as to where this is all going to go. I'll post a picture of her soon.

We ended up watching most of last night's Democratic debate. I don't have the time to go into detail, but I think Kucinich and Sharpton are much more interesting, imaginative, and idealistic (whoa, alliteration bonus) than Kerry and Edwards and Dean. It's always interesting to note which questions get asked of which candidates; milder questions tended to get lobbed toward the latter three, while Kucinich and Sharpton were tossed bones such as "Did Bush lie? Why did he lie?" and so on; it makes for some GREAT soundbytes if nothing else.

Apparently here in Nebraska the libraries don't carry tax forms. Michigan and Indiana libraries did but apparently here the place to go is the Post Office. One more lesson in not taking anything for granted.

Soon I have to pay a $25 fee just to graduate. I don't plan to be a part of the graduation ceremony at all.

I rarely win prizes. I'm not a terribly big believer in "luck" but don't rule it out -- to what extent there IS luck, I don't have much of it when it comes to winning things. My "luck" has been applied to things like not having cavities or not getting sick or injured while being without health insurance.
Anyway, I finally won something on Friday night. The big local art museum had a college night and gave away door prizes after a band played. We were standing clear at the back, of course, and couldn't really hear much other than the names drawn. Stacey didn't even register because she said she doesn't ever win anything anyway, so why bother. I'm a bit more optimistic and sure enough, my name was drawn. I wound my way through the crowd, most of them sitting at tables, and finally arrived off to the stage, terribly embarrassed to be in front of any kind of crowd. I told the assistant my name and she handed me my prize...
a MUG.
I have a whole shelf of mugs in my cupboard and don't have room for any more; in fact, I wouldn't have room for all I have now if it weren't for my propensity to frequently drop mugs onto hard surfaces. The mug I won is black and shiny, which is nice, but isn't even microwave-safe. Not only do I not want or need a mug, I now have the burden of determining what to do as to treat this prize responsibly.
This is how life goes, I suppose...my rare prize-winning is something absolutely worthless that I have absolutely no need or use for.