This 'n' That

Today will be an "all over the page" and a "hunh?" day for me... I'm going to write wherever my mind wanders....   Today, in Middle Earth Bilbo Baggins had an unexpected party, when 13 dwarves showed up on his doorstep for tea; Gandalf the wizard had invited them, but Bilbo didn't have any knowledge of it - or that it would lead him to find the Ring. ....  There was a 6.7 earthquake in Chile just before midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning - and earlier today, Popocatepetl, an active volcano near Mexico City, was sending out a lot of seismic grumbling.  Villages near the foot of Popo have been evacuated in case of an eruption, after a 40 minute long tremor.  ....  We have plenty of bald eagles around Boulder, but Saturday afternoon, the nest of a golden eagle was found near the southern tip of the Rattlesnake Gulch trail in Eldorado Canyon.  That end of the trail has now been closed to the public until July, when the expected chicks should fledge.  ....  Lovey stuck to me like glue last night, and so did Nedi.  But I can't figure out why I woke with a sore left knee today. I know the kits didn't do anything to it in bed last night!  ....  Turns out I'll be caring for Finn and Skippy at "the big house" Thursday and Friday this week.  And I had a wonderful, unrushed visit with Sasquatch and Tugger this morning.  ....   The ACLU says that closing the CU campus on 4/20 is a violation of "the students' right to dissent." I'm waiting to see what happens.  ....  The "report card" for the upper Cheaspeake Bay (in Maryland) has been released - if the Bay was well, healthy, and uncontaminated, she would get a score of 100; her score today is 42, down from 46 last year.  She is full of dead spots, contaminated spots, filled with trash and debris from last years' flooding, and, of course, the ever-spreading menace of fertilizer poisoning (nitrogen and phosphates) from lawns, farms, and golf courses.  ....  And I am totally outraged by the GSA's Las Vegas convention last year, that had a price tag of over $832,000  - that's how much I would make in 62.348 years with my pension!  When I worked for the EPA, under President Clinton, I routinely sent reports of misspending, graft, and bribery to the GSA - and, I believe, at that time, those things were acted upon.   But spending such an inordinate amount on a single convention, with private parties being held in the attendees' suites is just disgusting.  It's like the Secret Service  guys at the Hotel Caribe having prostitutes in their rooms, and bragging about Presidential details, while schedules of President Obama's movements were laying out in plain sight.   Those two things make me want to scream!!!  What is happening with our government?  Maybe we need to just make a clean sweep - and elect all new politicians - ones that have never served in the US Congress or US Senate before!