Today I’m sitting at my sewing machine in front a small tv set catching up some mending. All morning I’ve heard over and over about the fire in the tunnel in the U.K., I’ve listened to various dignitaries at both the 9/11 seventh anniversary ceremonies from Ground Zero in New York and the President’s address at the Pentagon. I’ve listened to all the hype about the presidential campaign, heard talking heads from both parties toss around their take on Sarah Palin–all the point of ad nauseum! Interspersed throughout is the turmoil along the Gulf Coast as all those people file on Interstate 45 to get away from Ike. I need to lay all that stuff aside for awhile and focus instead on stuff like these absurd newsmakers that just make me laugh. Maybe that guy from Alaska was right when he said God gave horses more brains than he gave people. Check these wool gatherings and see what YOU think!

I’m sure you’ve heard of the SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS? That 2005 movie with Amber Tamblyn? (And for you reading this who’ve been around awhile, you’ll probably remember Russ Tamblyn who was one of the Jets in West Side Story? Her father!) This first story could be a new take on pants that not only travel, they steal too! For two different men! And the third man? Wait’ll you hear his excuses:

Jonathan Williams, 33, was convicted of cocaine possession in England’s Guildford Crown Court in July, as jurors rejected his explanation that the pants he had on (containing the cocaine) were NOT his. That explanation also failed in August in Naples, Florida for Richard Obdyke, 19, when police found a stolen debit card in HIS pants. In both cases, the men said they had no idea whose pants they were wearing.) And in August in Corpus Christi, Texas, a 25-year-old man was arrested for drug possession during a traffic stop, despite his volunteering to police that “It’s not my truck,” and “if you find something [while searching it], it’s not mine.” Then, “If there’s anything in that black bag, it’s not mine.”

Well, that should cover about every possibility, shouldn’t it?! Next, I have to wonder who’s the real victim in this story:

Harry Shasho filed a lawsuit against New York City in August for $190,000, charging that his Bentley was poorly cared-for at the city’s automobile impount lot in 2005. It had been confiscated after Shasho fatally struck a pedestrian (for which he was later leniently sentenced, perhaps because the pedestrian was drunk). The city claims the only damage done was from the fatal collision, but Shasho believes city employees should have treated it better.

The third story could be called Watch out for that . . . !

According to police in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, four kids (ages 9 to 14) grabbed a donation box in August at River Place Park containing contributions to an organization that maintains the park’s portable toilets. They took the box and ran for the nearby woods with several police officers in pursuit. Three boys were caught, but the other one made it little ways into the woods before falling . . . into a manure pit built by homeless people at their emcampment.

Don’t you just love “poetic justice?!” The way things go in the world sometimes, I live for it! That’s all for now, but you can be sure I’ll be gathering more wool over the following week. Check back next week around the same time.