Moving daze

My God. Now I know why those nice people on craigslist gave us their beautiful moving boxes for free...it's because they breed. Suddenly, my entire living room is littered with boxes, all of them just waiting for me to turn my back, when they will multiply again and again until there's nothing left of my apartment but cardboard and packing peanuts! They are also homicidal. One of them fell over the other day and nearly landed on top of my tortoise, who perhaps should not be permitted to rampage through the house right now when there are so many dangers lurking around the corners. Although he thinks he's in paradise: there are interesting things to sample and eat everywhere!, from the crinkly clear plastic wrapping that fell off my box of crackers to wizened jalepeno seeds stuck to the kitchen floor.

Have I mentioned that we are not actually slobs?

It's just very, very difficult for me to care about sweeping the floor when I'm in the middle of planning a wedding, quitting my job, moving back home and trying to figure out how to relocate from the US. Suddenly, that layer of road grit under my bike stand doesn't seem so important. I'm starting to figure that as long as I don't lose Ndugu in it, there's really no reason to change.

On a lighter note, I love Texas. No, really. It makes me feel so much better about Washington when I read about how messed up Texas is. Apparently, some people in Texas have even greater job burnout than my friends and I. This from today's news:

WATAUGA, Texas -- A 911 dispatcher was reprimanded for responding to a mother's plea for help with an unruly child by saying: "OK. Do you want us to come over to shoot her?"

I could see how a truly wornout, slightly twisted individual could find that humorous - particularly when they are being harrassed by a mom who thinks it's okay to call 911 when her 12 year-old kicks a hole in the door. That's probably why I'm not an emergency dispatcher...

Also in today's news (and, conveniently, originating in the same state), Tom DeLay has apparently realized how incredibly ludicrous he's been sounding of late:

WASHINGTON -- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay apologized Wednesday for using overheated rhetoric on the day Terri Schiavo died, but refused to say whether he supports impeachment of the judges who ruled in her case.

DeLay backtracked as White House spokesman Scott McClellan said President Bush considers the Texas Republican, who is battling ethics allegations, a friend, but suggested that the majority leader is more of a business associate than a social pal.

"I think there are different levels of friendship with anybody," McClellan said.

At a crowded news conference in his Capitol office, DeLay addressed remarks he made in the hours after the brain-damaged Florida woman died on March 31. "I said something in an inartful way and I shouldn't have said it that way and I apologize for saying it that way," DeLay told reporters.

Shortly after Schiavo's death, Delay said it represented a failure of the legal system. DeLay's statement also said, "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

DeLay said at the news conference that he was eager to appear before the leaders of the House ethics committee and give "everything I have" in connection with allegations of misconduct.

You KNOW it's gotta be bad when the Bush Administration doesn't want to be your friend anymore. I hope DeLay finally hangs himself with the terribly long noose he's been weaving. I usually try to say something evenhanded about politics, but this man is an embarrassment to the American political system. In an era where we've had a lot of things to be ashamed of, it says something that he is a credible frontrunner for Most Corrupt Politician of the Decade. You know, I don't think I'm going to miss this part of being in the US at all!