So it's overcast and cool to almost cold, the sun due around noon and the afternoon, I have no doubt, will be nauseatingly sunny and fine. Lying in bed this morning listening to the radio they were talking about people on limited incomes living in the far reaches of Maine and other northern states who are looking at doubling their heating oil bills this winter. When I lived with my family outside of New York City in my teenage years we had a heating oil bill of something over a thousand dollars for an entire winter season.

Now this was in the fifties and sixties, so I assume that's the equivalent of as much as five thousand in today's dollars. Double that would be ten thousand dollars to heat that house through the winter. Now it's a big house owned, no doubt, by people of means at the moment, but ten grand to heat it brings home the problem for people living in northern states where it can get well below zero for months on end. It got cold in the winter in my area of New York, but not as cold and not the problem it's going to be for a whole lot of people in the Northeast.

Another plug for the Bay Area, I guess. I see that gas prices keep going down and I suspect they'll continue to go down further, but I have no confidence heating or cooling your home is going to cost anything less during the rest of my life. I'd tell you what my own monthly energy bill is here except the kind of person who gloats over such things makes me choke. Choke, choke, choke.

You skate along the edge of these questions. I'm not sure you aren't guilty of crossing the line more often than not.

Between the gloating and the political rants I have a readership that consists of my sister and a Mad Nederlander grill man in Greece.

Later. I do spend a bit of time on the web and I do think about it and this is why I get out the door more often than not, camera over the shoulder, with no idea of where I'm going, where I might like to go, just to get some exercise. Sometimes I'll drive somewhere, park and walk around some area I've walked around a million times in the past, but mostly I get out the door, look at my watch to see if there might be a bus coming by and then set out, finding out where I'm going when I get there.

Which I did earlier this afternoon. Walked down the way, discovering finally, that I was going to the local Seven-Eleven look alike to buy a quart of diet Coke and then walk back to sit again at this computer. Should I be worried? No, I'm getting into this retirement business and looking forward to getting on the road later to photograph my cousin's daughter's wedding in Seattle. I'm thinking of going up the northern Washington coast, something I haven't done in years. I won't do it, of course, go up the coast, but it shows a certain joie de vivre, don't you think? Oh? Really?

Later still. A run over to the pet store to buy ten individual cans of different brands/varieties of cat food. Ms. Emmy is picky, but lately she's been really picky not eating any of her normal fare. Makes me wonder if the cat food producers are cutting corners now with the cost of food increasing as rapidly as it has. So we'll see. She just dug into something called Prairie Chicken Recipe and I was hoping she'd like it, but now I'm not so sure. She's giving me her “what might you taste like sauteed with a little catnip” look. Well, maybe one down, there's still nine to go.