I have been contemplating this of late, rolling it around in my brain, mulling, weighing the options, listening to the talking heads, on both sides of the fence. It occurs to me (and please take no offense at this) but America as a country is a baby of sorts when it comes to the threats and horrors of terrorism. September 11th was a baptism of fire so to speak, in the most cruel and horrible way. Those of us who have lived with terrorism for years and become almost familiar with it find America's resistance to full scale war against the terrorists almost unnerving. I am fully aware that Ben Franklin said that "those who are willing to give up liberty for security deserve neither" but I would posit that you don't have a great deal of liberty or security when you are dead. I am sure that the people who lost their lives in the twin towers would be happy as a clam to imagine that their government was monitoring the telephone calls of terrorists either in or out of the country if it meant that the terrorists never got a chance to hijack those planes and fly them into the towers. I lived under a tight security net for many many years (the 14 years I spent in the Royal Navy), at one point I was even issued a mirror on a stick to check under my vehicle for bombs each time I got into it. (Let that roll around your head for a moment, EVERY time you got into your vehicle you checked first for bombs). I couldn't tell strangers I met in a bar what I did for a living, I couldn't wear a T-shirt proudly proclaiming I was in the Royal Navy, on a night out in a bar we would have one member drink soda and be on "shark watch" to make sure no terrorists were planning to bomb the pub that we frequented, I couldn't even carry a suitcase that distinguished me as a member of the armed forces, and as a result of these rules I am alive and kicking today, and I was not shot in the head standing, waiting for a train at a train station. Ben Franklin was a wise man, but he did not live in the world we live in today, with weapons of mass destruction and cell phones, and planes, and skyscrapers. If monitoring phone calls can save the life of just ONE human being then is it not worth it? The most important point to remember is that ONLY those people who have something to fear will worry about having their phone calls monitored. Fred Bloggs calling Joe Smith to discuss the merits of the latest Panthers game has nothing to fear when it comes to someone monitoring his phone calls. Gramma calling Joey to wish him a happy birthday has nothing to fear. The right to privacy is of course important but surely, surely a human being's right to live trumps that right to privacy. Please don't tell me that if a monitored phone call could have stopped those people throwing themselves out of the twin towers to escape the fire you would have resisted that on the grounds of a right to privacy. I hate to say this but ONLY those people who are breaking the law, or who are planning to break the law have any fear of their phone calls being monitored. Look at historical fact. The British Government fought against the IRA for years with a variety of measures each one perhaps infringing on the "rights" of their citizens (ie random searches etc.) what was the result? the IRA as a terrorist group are dead, they simply do not pose a threat any more, they are gone. We won the battle by making our citizens more secure and by making life difficult for the terrorists (and not worrying about the political correctness of shooting them where they stood if the opportunity arose - Gibraltar.) The fact is that terrorists will prey on lax security and their "rights" being protected to kill human beings. I for one will sleep soundly in my bed tonight knowing that somewhere, someone is monitoring the cell phone calls of enemies of this country and thwarting their next plan of attack. Think about it people. How much liberty do you have when you're dead?

My cats are spoiled. I suppose this is a silly thing to say, bearing in mind that most people say things like "are Britty's cats spoiled? is the Pope catholic?" sort of thing but it occurred to me this evening that my cats are REALLY spoiled. To begin with they have an endless supply of dry food which is kept in one of those endless supply feeders on top of a bookcase in the living room. This is due to the fact that two boxers and a lab cross can go through a 10lb bag of dry cat food in the time it takes Paris Hilton to go through a fiance. So they are by no means hungry by any stretch of the imagination. But, in addition to the dry cat food (and not the cheap stuff either they get Cat Chow), they are fed a can of some sort of fish each night. It used to be canned cat food but I learned that it made them throw up and being tired of cleaning cat vomit from various places around my house I replaced it with fish. So on any given evening they dine on either Jack Mackrel, Salmon or Tuna. So this evening it was Salmon, I opened the can, and divided it up between their bowls and called them all for dinner (the ones that did not react to the sound of the can opener like a ballistic missile that is). Patches and her progeny, Mini-me (I think you have seen pictures of the two of them), slunk in from outside and sidled up to the food bowls whereupon they sniffed.... "hmmmmm pink salmon, where the hell is the tuna pah" and walked away. Now I ask you what cat in its right mind would walk away from a dish of pink salmon? ESPECIALLY (and this the the absolutely ironic part about it) as Patches, Miss "I'm too bloody important to eat canned pink salmon" was FOUND at approximately six weeks old starving in a parking lot at a local grocery store eating some squashed burger type thing.... and NOW, NOW she lives with me she turns her nose up at pink Salmon? I made some shrimp things the other week and had some spare shrimp so I gave them to the cats, same reaction, "hey this thing smells like fish but it involves chewing what's with that?" I tell you I am being taken advantage of and if she thinks she is getting tuna seven nights a week she can think again.



There is some sort of hawk or kestral type of thing that is checking out my bird feeders at the moment. Now as you know I am a bird lover, but I am in no way happy about some sort of hawk or kestral preying on the birds that visit my feeders. It is quite unnerving, one minute the bird feeders will look like Grand Central Station and the next there is not a soul around, and those that are around are keeping an eye on the heavens....while I love raptors in all forms I just wish they would stick to eating mice and rats and stuff and leave my birdies the he** alone....





And finally did you know that in the state of North Carolina it is a misdemeanor for a man and a woman to live together without being married.... yeah well now you do. Here is the story and in case you were wondering why I am posting it we are the lawyers for the plaintiff... (they need a local NC lawyer to be in on the case) so spent most of my morning kicking my heels in Pender County, Peter Isajiw is a sweetheart by the way, and not at all what you would think a "big New York city lawyer" sometimes the law is fun and this is one of those cases. Go ahead and get mad at this story...

[[LINK:http://www.wwaytv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=4373954]]

and not as one would expect in a subdued way such as refusing to heat water, resulting in the shock of a cold shower in the morning. No, as many familiar with my life know by now my water heater had to die in the most spectacular way possible, by springing a leak and shedding its entire contents onto the living room and dining room floor. I opened the door and entered on arriving back from work and was quite perturbed when I appeared to be paddling in my own living room. Now the dogs have been kept in of late, due to the vinyl siding guys, but I figured even they couldn't pee that much, even if all three of them got together and hatched a plan to all pee in the same place for at least an hour or so. Not only was I perturbed by the fact that the living room was full of water (thank the gods for tiled floors by the way, we dug up the carpets after hurricane Floyd and I swore I would never do it again, hence tiled floors) but in and around the water heater was where I kept my spare bed linens, this serves two purposes, it keeps the bed linens warm and dry and it keeps the water heater insulated thereby saving energy. So in addition to having a paddling pool in my living room all my spare bedding on the floor area of the water heater was soaking wet. After I had dragged out all of the sodden bed linens I contemplated the situation, does one call a plumber and get him to repair the water heater or does one buy a new water heater and attempt to replace it oneself? *jeopardy music* I got online and checked out the prices of water heaters, checked out how difficult it would be to replace and contemplated. Three words however convinced me that calling a plumber was the best course of action, the three words were a) water, b) electricity and c) soldering. As I have said in the past I am happy to do simple electric things (replacing a light fixture or ceiling fan for instance) but when it comes to technical electricity things I hand the entire job over to the experts, not wanting to end up burnt and crispy. To begin with "water" and "electricity" in the same sentence worried me, then when you add "fire" (ie soldering) into the mix I was thoroughly convinced that I would end up a) electrocuting myself b) flooding the house or c) burning the house down. Then there was the problem of how to dispose of the old water heater. Nope, a plumber had to be called. Luckily I have a great source of referrals in my vinyl siding guy (he knows absolutely everyone in town) and he put me on to a nice man who came out here this morning (saturday) and replaced the water heater, not only for a good price, but he was polite, efficient and didn't mind having to put up with the dogs wanting to know what the hell he was doing in the closet under the stairs. So now I have a new water heater, which I have to admit we have done quite well with as the old one was 20 years old and the average life span for one is 10 AND ours went through the Floyd flood and survived so I think I got off lucky. Of course this HAD to happen the month we are having the vinyl siding put in but you know, whatever. I celebrated this evening by drinking a VERY nice bottle of Chablis (you just can't FIND chablis in the US I have no idea why other than the fact that the French must keep all the best stuff for themselves and their fellow Europeans.) *Sigh* I suppose I am going to have to do the dishes now, for the past few days I had a really good excuse not to...

When I returned from vacation one of my cats was missing. My darling timid Con (full name Amy's Con as we acquired him as a result of a con by one of my husband's students) I immediately blamed myself, if I had NOT gone on vacation then he would NOT have gone missing, it was my fault, purely and simply. I searched all over the house for him, all over the gardens, went to the pound half a dozen times, contacted the Animal protection people. No sign of him. What was so weired is that he is such a home body. For the most part he lives on top of the computer monitor, the furthest afar he goes is the garage where he sleeps in the rafters only to come down for dinner, and he is regular as clockwork when it comes to that, he NEVER misses dinner. Which was so strange when he didn't come in for dinner on our first day back. I called him and called him and put food out at the front door for him every night just in case. I cried alot during the week, I missed him dreadfully. I was composing how I was going to tell my mum on my way home this evening. She loves my cats almost as much as I do. "Con is missing mum" whereupon she would have cried and I would have cried and it would have been 20 minutes of the two of us crying. So I pulled into the driveway this evening and I saw a familiar streak of white running down the neighbor's driveway "Con?" I called as I got out of the car, forgetting the groceries, forgetting to say hello to the vinyl siding guys, "Con?" I called again and he came running to me, almost as if he was in disbelief that it was me. I gathered him up in my arms and kissed him and kissed him and cried all over him. I took him in the house and gave him some dry food, he was obviously starving, weighing nothing when I picked him up. I fed him a little at a time, not wanting him to get sick, then he got a whole can of tuna to himself when I fed everyone else. I have no idea where he was for over a week, but I suspect that someone "catnapped" him from the driveway, thinking perhaps that they were rescuing him (despite the fact that he is fixed and wears a collar) and it took him a week to escape. Needless to say he is now asleep on my lap, fed, warm and content. We have exchanged many kisses and hugs, and kneading and cuddles in the past couple of hours, in a little while I will have to get up and he will get on his favorite spot, the computer monitor, and finally everything will be right in Britty land, my furbaby is home.

So we are having vinyl siding put on our house right now. It was on my wish list of things to do but just recently it became a necessity as large chunks of the old wood siding began literally falling off the house. You would be sat quietly watching tv or whatever and you would hear a "thunk" go outside to see what it was and sure enough yet another piece of siding had fallen into the flower beds. So as the house rapidly began to deteriorate and look, to my shame, more like an abandoned crack house than a well kept home I had to bite the bullet and spend the large amount of money to get it done. Now according to my research it is money well spent because not only will the house immediately increase in value (at least by the amount of money we have spent on the siding) but my heating bills will be reduced too so the theory is that the siding will pay for itself. (We shall see of course). However, it is very unnerving to me to have people over working on the house. I am simply not used to it. In normal circumstances I do everything myself, (everything except anything to do with electricity, I can hook up a ceiling fan or change a light fixture but other than that I do not mess with wiggly amps, I am not enthusiastic about my abilities to do any wiring without becoming burnt and crispy). Even after hurricane Floyd when the house flooded and needed extensive repairs no outside help was called, it was just me and my mum's fiance Norman, ripping out sheetrock replacing insulation, replacing all the carpets with vinyl tile etc., etc. Apart from anything else when it comes to repairs etc., at least I know when I do it that it will be done a) the way I want it done b) will not damage something else c) will more than likely be done right or close enough for government work and d) it won't cost me an arm, a leg and my first born child. As it is the vinyl siding guys are merrily tromping all over my flower beds, stomping on who knows what lovingly nurtured plants, breaking all sorts of doohickies that I have hanging around. Yesterday I came home and the phone is no longer working. Now considering that when I left in the morning it was fine and they had been working on the side of the house where the phone junction box is located and when I returned the phone was dead I would be comfortable putting money on the fact that they had done "something" to kill the phone. They assure me they haven't but you know it wouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that yes, they did. Not to put down the vinyl siding guys, they are good hardworking boys who are working under difficult circumstances seeing as me, the homeowner, has done her level best to make their job as difficult as possible (with aforementioned flower beds and doohickies.) One of the head guys at the vinyl siding company happens to be a friend of my boss (which is why I got such a good deal) therefore I have a direct line to the boss so to speak and I know that they are being as careful as they can, knowing as they do that the boss is not going to be best pleased if they annoy me. Still it is disconcerting to me to have virtual strangers doing things to my house. It is even more disconcerting to the dogs, who have just about destroyed every obstacle between them and the front garden in their efforts to get out there and corral the invaders, so that now they are confined to the house during the day so that the vinyl siding guys do not end up as boxer food. Today when the boys were working out there Cueball and Judy followed the banging noises around the house in an attempt to make sure that the invaders were not coming in through the walls. They were beside themselves not being allowed out to take on the trespassers and I am sure that given the opportunity they would have given them a serious barking to. The cats of course ignored them thinking as they do that unless the vinyl siding guys were carrying large amounts of fresh tuna in their pockets they were not worth bothering with. Finally the most annoyed members of my (extended) family were the birds. The majority of my bird feeders are out back on the patio, and that is exactly where the guys were working today. The cardinals (my largest population of birds along with the mourning doves) sat in the trees just complaining at the top of their lungs. Whereas when I am pottering around in the garden they will tend to ignore me knowing that I am no threat, the strangers were an obvious threat and they were not willing to risk visiting the feeders while they were present. I have no doubt that tomorrow they will be glad that it is Sunday, even if they have no idea what Sunday is. So now you see that posting a story about vinyl siding has given me excuse to post a bird shot