(Snuck home between deliveries …)

A coworker who shall go unnamed made a comment today regarding the London bombings and the possibility that Islamic extremists were behind it: “Turn the middle east into glass, kill all the Mohammedian fuckers.”

I find it frightening that a Jew would advocate genocide on a geographical, racial, or religious basis, particularly considering that just over sixty-years ago Jews themselves were the targets of a racial and religious based genocide.

I’m fairly certain this coworker made those comments in the heat of the moment. But I’m also certain that there are a lot of people who feel that genocide is the answer, and they’re usually the same people who are the first to point out Hussein’s cruelities and mass-executions.

His comments made me sad. What makes me sadder are the people who actually think genocide is the answer.

From USA Today:

Three blasts rocked the London subway and one tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour Thursday, sending bloodied victims fleeing in what a shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called “barbaric” terrorist attacks. A U.S. law enforcement official said at least 40 people were killed and London hospitals reported more than 300 injured.

“We are united in our resolve to confront and defeat this terrorism,” Blair said at the summit, with leaders including President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac standing at his side. “We will not allow violence to change our societies or our values, nor will we allow it to stop our work at this summit.”

I had a bit here - before - about wondering if this would have happened if we hadn’t invaded Iraq and had instead concentrated on Al Queda, but that just isn’t appropriate right now. I don’t believe in God, so I won’t be praying for the British victims, but I have a hunch London, Great Britain, and its allies will band together to support the victims of this action.

S. and I met in middle school, many many years ago. He moved, we kept in touch off and on, and finally more off than … y’know, on. Saw him every now and then, and eventually he moved back to the Maryland area. Last time I saw him he was over at my place for a somewhat impromptu get-together with The Stepsisters and my friend K., all of whom — coincidentally? — went to the very same middle school, all those years ago.

Anyway, S. lives down in Annapolis and after sporadic communication over the last six months — we spoke to wish each other a Happy New Year, I invited him to the Star Wars Happy Hour but he couldn’t make it — we started corrosponding rather regularly through e-mail. Apparently he didn’t know my sister was teaching in Hawaii, which indicates just how long we’ve been out of touch. This is what I meant in an earlier post when I said (I’m paraphrasing myself) “I have a tendency to let friendships die.” Anyway, we finally figured, “eff this, we should get together.”

So, Friday after work I’m heading down to Annapolis, we’re going to go out and grab beers and do the whole tourist thing downtown. It’s probably been close to two years since I was last in Annapolis — and many many many years more before that — and in his company then as well, I believe.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to it. Depending on weather, I might take the Wrangler that I will have use of for the next couple of weeks, but although I’m leaving immediately after work Friday (three pm at the latest, I hope) I’m worried about two things — rush hour traffic coupled with beach traffic.

Does anyone know a good back-road way to get into Annapolis? Just in case, y’know, the alternative is a parking lot on route 50 …

*UPDATE*

I’m actually meeting him at his apartment on Admiral Drive, then we’ll head into downtown later. He told me to take the Rowe Blvd exit 70.

First let me say that tonight was a crappy, horrible night. It started out great, F., our sixty-year old driver, had to go do music for a commercial, so there were only two of us driving. Hooray, lots of money! Nope, because not only was it slow as hell, but tips were absolute shit. I was very tempted to write a nice long post mentioning by address the people who live a solid 14-mile round trip from the store and literally never tip and want their change back despite the fact that they live in a McMansion and can afford to spend enough cash to keep their H2 fueled and ready to go.

(Actually, it occurs to me that their H2 is why they can’t afford to tip me at all).

In any case, I was listening to the Ron Smith show on WBAL. He had a left-leaning guest on the show — this guy has been on before, but I can’t remember his name. Anyway, what I found interesting was the arguements that the two were making about the Karl Rove leak.

Ron Smith was arguing for prosecution of Rove, and the liberal commenter’s concern was the protection of Rove’s identity. I mean, it really just surprised the hell out of me, y’know? A conservative — although he’s a libertarian/conservative not a whore-to-the-religious-right conservative — arguing for the indictment of Karl Rove, and a liberal arguing for his protection?

(I mean, yeah, the lib was arguing not so much for Rove as much as the reporter/confidential source privlige).

(My spelling is atrocious).

In any case, I was just like, “Wow.”

(Because, really, that takes some principle … because, really, what lib wouldn’t want to cheer when faced with the prospect of the President’s chief political advisor getting locked up on a charge of treason?)

I.E., “Flea Bombing.”

So my plan is that one day next week I will take the cats in for a bath and an overnight stay. The vet hospital I spoke to charges $35-45 for a cat bath, and $10 per cat per night. The difference in bath charges depends on how “cooperative” the cat in question is, or as the woman at the desk put it, “How much blood the bathee winds up spilling from the bather.”

After taking the cats into the hospital, I will then return home and activate the flea bombs. The plan is to do this before my independent job, returning from the indy job in the early afternoon to open the windows and start the ventilation process. I will then go see a movie or whatever, go to my night job, and return to a mostly ventilated (I hope!) apartment eight hours later, upon which time I will begin a full clean of the entire apartment, including a complete wash of all laundry and linens in the place, and a vacuum of all carpets and cushions and mattresses.

This will then be repeated two weeks later, as I understand any fleas in the larvae process will be protected by that process from the initial flea bombs.

I do have a few concerns, however. This website lists many things you should be careful of when flea bombing, I mean for one thing, is this true?:

Make sure you turn off all electrical appliances e.g. fridges, timers on heaters. This is because many of the mists are explosive and a small electrical spark may be enough to ignite them in your absence

Eeep!

I’m worried about the ventilation. My apartment doesn’t have windows which fully open. There are two glass panels. The left frame of the interior panel slides open, but on the exterior panel, it’s the right frame which slides open. So I’m concerned that the ventilation might not happen according to plan.

My biggest concern is fogging my apartment. Because it is an apartment, I don’t want the fogging fumes to somehow get from my apartment into other apartments and kill my neighbors’ pets. Anyone have any advice about bombing apartments?

I’m going through my clothes throwing EVERYTHING into trash bags. Until I fumigate, I’m going to leave the bags untouched, relying on about three or four days worth of clothes to get me through. This means I’ll have to do laundry twice a week but … meh … I do that anyway.