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Addendum to barely constructed Thursday evening reviews:

I finished my digital copy of New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear which i did not find challenging to read at all but a pleasant diversion. Zeppelins! (Challenging to read brings to mind a book in Christine's stacks, that has the text interleaved between reading front to back or flipping the book over and reading front' to back'.) I've also just finished the twenty fourth edition of The Year's Best Science Fiction, which appears to be for 2006. In the collection is "The Pacific Mystery," another alternative history, with Zeppelins! Well, a Zeppelin like airship. Elizabeth Bear had a coauthored story in the collection about rescuing a politically censored play from the Elizabethan thought police: less engaging, i found.

August approaches, another cross quarter day, and the year turns. I had noticed the dimming of the evening on Wednesday when i was in a bad mood, and wondered if it was more my mood. But in hindsight, yes, we're at the point on the sinewave pattern of day length* where we rapidly slip from long to short crossing the equinox.

I didn't follow through on advocacy blogging about Colombia in July. (Someone else does: http://1peaceatatime.blogspot.com/2009/07/5-new-us-military-bases-in-colombia-is.html) August, i had planned, would be a month of quiet, before taking up new committee roles in September as clerk. I had written, "3) Assuming i am on an additional committee in September, between the initial meeting of that committee and New Years, i may choose to continue the one focus area or i may replace it. I will not hold myself to do anything for that focus, though."

I've plenty of committee work to do in August though. [And plenty of work for Friday morning, which i then went about.]


* approximation, see http://herbert.gandraxa.com/herbert/lod.asp#toc64 -- this seems to leave out any effects due to the changing distance between sun & earth. To the precision of my experience, a sine wave is good enough.

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I would love to post an entry, but allergies attack. Thursday night i chose not to take the antihistamine, planning to take another in the morning. I forgot and was fine. Gee, i thought, what with no pollen alerts for a couple of months, maybe i can cut back? And so, i didn't take one last night, and this morning i am miserable. I coped with this for three decades? Thank heavens for modern antihistamines.

Evening Review
Give thanks, share beauty, note joy:

I'm particularly thankful for The Consultant, originator of the product i support. He is supportive, helpful, and able to rescue us from failure and ignorance and the battleship inertia.

Noteworthy events (dining out, errands, correspondence):
* First use of bluetooth headset with Skype & computer went quite well except the flash player doesn't seem to work with it. I suspect this is some sort of stereo output issue and could be fixed if i got a fancier headset -- but then the headset would not work with the Treo. The best thing about the headset is that it is NOT stereo: one ear is free to hear what is going on around me. I feel more comfortable that way. And i can wander about, knowing if someone is trying to skype or message me or send email, i can hear the alert and get back to them. Or not.

* Went out with Christine for a Mexican dinner and the movie Up. And, oh did i sob at the first sad bit. Other than that, a good time.

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AAARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!

Christine, just before leaving for two weeks, cleared the dining room table of tax stuff. (You do the math.) I was then able to move the table that is "falling apart" and replace it with the one my mom sent us for our birthdays. (If you do not recall, she spent lots of money in shipping it across country, about the same amount the table i was thinking of buying cost.)

We just moved the new table in place. Closed, it has a 3' x 1.5' surface. A leaf folds open, and it's an ideal 3' square. EXCEPT there's *NOTHING* but the force of the one inch thickness of the leaf against the other leaf (and the hinges) holding the leaf up.

ARGH. It is ... fragile. If i were a dainty dainty dainty person i might be satisfied imagine it holding up a china tea cup and small china plate with a cookie. But i have pottery and stoneware and heavy flatware and elbows that i prop my heavy self up with at the table and a cat who goes *boing* off all surfaces and ... i just don't see that working.

I am VERY disappointed.

We're eating in front of a moving picture tonight, as usual.