2008 — 6 August: Wednesday
I'm declaring today the day I catch up on some of the pile of domestic administrivia I've been benignly neglecting for rather too long. Stuff like Christa's Tax Return, which isn't going to fill in itself. In the meantime, tonight's picture is a reminder for anyone who thinks parenthood is anything but exhausting in the early years. As near as I can estimate, this will have been in 1983 (before her first cancer surgery). The white blanket was Peter's "comfort" blanket which was gradually whittled away to nothing over the course of a year or so, but there was a time when it had to go everywhere with us. Kids, heh?
Christa, Peter, and some precious downtime, 1983?
G'night at 00:03 or so.
Yet another day...
... enlivened by the sounds of technology slicing into the road somewhere very close1 at the side of the house (a literal blind side as there are no windows in it at all). Most frustrating for the bleary-eyed curious chap who lives here. Time (09:35) for a cuppa — no point being thirsty as well as curious. It's moist but not raining; cloud cover is complete but there's some sunshine up there somewhere. And now a whole different set of noises.
I cannot pretend to be deeply interested in higher education, even in this country, but this article is depressing. Snippet:
Grading, the one instrument of power I wielded, offers the best example of the degradation of pedagogy by the frenzy of success. The Boston Globe's expose of grade inflation at Harvard has left little doubt that it is a semi-rigged competition, another subsidised risk. The formal scale runs from A to F. The tacit scale runs from A to B. ... drawn into a tacit agreement between corporation and client in which failure is not an option. I had to grade the students, and I had to grade them well. Everyone expected a recommendation letter.
Those students who have felt attacked in the article have been vocal, but rather dim, in their criticisms.
Lads who Lunch... dept.
Or, in my case, lad who lunches. I'm just back from Eastleigh and more locally in a partly-successful attempt to track down an acceptable Chilean Merlot to replace a bottle I cack-footedly managed to trip over and smash on Monday night — it's the gay, hectic whirl of a life I'm leading, you understand. I wasn't even drinking myself, as a driver. Having lucked out in Sainsbury's I'm hoping the young lad in Waitrose got it right. I shall find out soon enough, no doubt.
Now, down with the tea and the last tranche (dollop?) of crockpottery to allay the slight shakiness in the outer limbs. Plus I managed to get my grubby mitts on two (count 'em) two well-fired loaves. One so freshly-baked I didn't bother to get it sliced for the freezer. Today's main driving theme, by the way, seemed to be "We needn't bother to signal; it's only a bloke in a Yaris." Wait till I get a Lamborghini.
Now what?
Delicious. I shall nip out again for a fresh batch of ingredients a bit later on. But now (14:06) back to some more chores, he unchortled. I have no clear idea how Christa became such a household whizz, but I'm afraid it's now too late to ask her. I suspect her secret was "just get on with it".
When I left school (39 years ago) I thought element 104 was the highest known, and it was called kurchatovium. What little I knew, heh? Not only is it now called rutherfordium, there are a further 14 of even higher atomic number. Element 104 has a half-life of 65 seconds, so there's never likely to be much of it around. There's loads of good reading and viewing here.
Shattered illusions... dept.
I'm told a Lamborghini has a very poor turning circle, and probably not a very long half-life, either. So it wouldn't be much use in the Waitrose carpark scrunched between a pair of obscenely large SUVs, would it? Why do people like to drive around in these pretend tanks, do you suppose? Presumably an illusion of safety. My own theory is that drivers should not be allowed to have seat belts, and there should be a fierce rusty spike fixed to the centre of the steering wheel for unfussy impaling in the event of rapid deceleration. And no mithril coat, either!
Anyhowsoever, I now have the ingredients for the next batch of crockpottery, plenty of healthy fruit, and a topped-up supply of biscuits. (Don't tell Christa, but I'm economising on the chocolate one-sided digestives by experimenting with some "generic" brands.) Time (17:36) for a cuppa and to hang up on some hapless cold-caller. Whatever she was selling, I wasn't in the mood.
I can feel (her) mind going, Dave...
Sadly, dear Mama is deteriorating almost in front of my ears, as it were. I rang her about 30 minutes ago (when it had become clear that Chris Evans wasn't going to tell the nation his "stoat" joke) just to keep in touch (as I'm commanded to do, of course). She hastened to tell me she'd be unable to put Big Bro up when he calls in (he often used to stay overnight, whereas Christa and I would just bite the bullet and head for home on our 300-mile round trip — largely because we were never offered any alternative!). No matter. Even though I had to remind her that when Bro arrives from Chile we'd actually be travelling up together to see her. ("Yes, well, you'll have to make your own arrangements.")
But she's just rung back to tell me that she forgot to tell me that her sister is in hospital. She tells me this as if for the first time every time we speak. But I've already found out the hard way that if I pre-empt her and ask after her sister, Mama assumes "someone" has told me, and demands to know who. And if I then answer honestly "You" (because I was taught to be honest) she either doesn't believe me, or bites my head off for not making any allowance for her age and failing memory. I literally cannot win. I'm not sure I even want to play. So tonight, I just said something anodyne like "Oh, dear" and left it at that. The ploy appeared to work.
This evening's entertainment...
... apart from doing the dishes, of course, was to watch the Pixar Shorts DVD that showed up a few days ago. Which prompts me to track a few more incoming bits and bobs due to land in the next few days:
- Logitech Harmony One
- Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters
- I Robot: 30th Anniversary Edition
- Harps and Angels
- Tangazo
- Tangos: Bandoneon Concerto (Goritzki) [Sacd/CD Hybrid]
- Beyond Therapy (1987)
From the top, these are my sixth attempt to find a completely satisfactory universal remote control, the set of Dirk Bogarde letters, the second album from Alan Parsons, the new album from Randy Newman, and two tango-related CDs. The last item is a Robert Altman film I was completely unaware of.