2009 — 23 January: Friday
Tonight's picture of Christa is again from Old Windsor in the very early days of our parenthood:
Christa and Peter in Old Windsor, 1980
A mere 01:07 or so, and just the last of the day's meds still to be gulped down. I've belatedly realised, by the way, that I have 14 days of the "Flucloxacillin" pill, and seven of the "Phenoxymethylpenicillin". Pity the poor bacteria, not! Having watched Sue Perkins picking over some TV comedy bones (not all of them funny), how can I resist repeating one of Huw Wheldon's delicious jokes?
Before I switched off for the night I also channel-hopped my way idly up the Freeview set, alighting (very briefly) on "Celebrity Big Brother". I kid you not, it was a remake of Warhol's film of a sleeping man. Literally. Now, why would any sentient being wish to watch that? Beats me, chief! G'night, to the soothing sound of pounding rain.
Brightly shines...
... the new, dry, day! Well, it does by the time I resurface a couple of hours after the first dose of meds this morning. It's 10:47 and I'm hungry and thirsty. The finger is even more bendable, and even less inflamed, though still tinted red and feeling hotter than its companion digits. Time for tea and sympathy. ("Tea and Symphony" was the title of a compilation album that Mark Lamarr played a track from last night. I got a helluva shock when I looked up its price on Amazon, and will not be adding it to the pile.)
Yesterday's transient server problems were caused by the /home partition going read-only. I'm assured it's learned its lesson. Today's transient breakfast cereal overflow problems are being caused by an overfull dish. I'm working on it. And listening to various tales about our largest lake. Meanwhile, here's an interesting question:
How long does copyright extend today? According to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (also known as "the Mickey Mouse Protection Act," because Mickey was about to fall into the public domain), it lasts as long as the life of the author plus seventy years. In practice, that normally would mean more than a century. Most books published in the twentieth century have not yet entered the public domain. When it comes to digitization, access to our cultural heritage generally ends on January 1, 1923, the date from which great numbers of books are subject to copyright laws.
I learned a lot from this article.
Lad who lunches late
Just (14:13 and counting) back from a "traditional" trip to the local metropolis and, having popped the meds, have to wait an hour for my lunch. The Avenue was very busy, so I took about 30 minutes longer than I'd expected. Still, it was nice to get out and about a bit, and I topped up the Yaris too — 12,956 miles so far... Ever onward. I was thinking I hadn't heard from ERNIE yet this month when I remembered that our on-off relationship is "off" for January. <Sigh> Perhaps he'll give me a pleasant surprise next month?
Adrift on a sea of troubles... dept.
I don't really like to grumble — if the months since Christa's death have taught me anything, it's that Life is on occasion cruel, capricious, and quite tediously hard, with an added streak of malicious humour. But here I am (web and email servers up and down like a pair of yo-yos) pondering a pair of problems that are simple to describe, but vary from the intractable to the insoluble:
- My infected finger
I have to attend the orthopaedic clinic tomorrow at noon, and be prepared for a range of options, and I'm left wondering how to plan for each contingency:- "go home and finish the pills"
- "hang around while we sharpen a scalpel and find some local anaesthetic and somewhere to park you for the afternoon while we dig into, and flush out the infection from, your inflamed digit"
- possible admission "for up to 72 hours on intravenous antibiotics" possibly combined with "2" above
- My afflicted mother
I've fielded several calls on (and since) Monday from her concerned neighbours and ex-neighbours, all of whom are worried about severe deterioration in her mental state. She hasn't called me herself, as she knows I have my own health problems (I'm pleased she at least took that onboard). But she is basically no longer capable of independent living and needs more help than I can offer from 150 miles away, and at this moment. I've not been contacted by her GP's surgery following a 15-minute visit to her on Monday, although I did call the surgery in case they were willing to share their assessment with me.
Should you happen to read this, Big Bro, I suspect you may wish to start thinking about packing a travel bag...
Later that day...
So the recession is official, heh? Well, there's a surprise and a half.
After "QI", I half-watched some of the programme about a chap going around the world in search of the meanings of 80 faiths. I stuck with it as far as, and a little bit beyond, the whirling dervishes. (There was a time, some years BC [Before Christa], when I read the folk-tales [parables] collected by Idries Shah — particularly those featuring Mulla Nasrudin.) Enlightenment failed to strike me then, and again tonight. But at least I discovered, while reminding myself about Shah, that it was his older brother who (with Robert Graves) reworked The Rubaiyat. And that Alan Hovhaness set a dozen quatrains from The Rubaiyat to music. My order to Amazon has just (I hope) snaffled the last CD in stock.