2010 — 6 July: Tuesday
Hello, pension! Nice to see you.
Once again, an early night has led to a correspondingly early morning. It's a mere 07:14 hereabouts, and deliciously quiet. The initial cuppa awaits. And Big Bro is (potentially) asking for a sofa in a week or so. He'll be lucky, though I'm sure there is one buried somewhere around here. Heck, there's a folding "Zed" bed within a few feet of where I'm currently crouching, too, but is it get-at-able? Now there's a good question. Perhaps he can sleep in his hire car? :-)
All these years, and I never realised the malaria parasite was a "virus" :-)
But, since I don't have a clue who the lady is, what do I know? I admire the breadcrumb trail, however. I may have to adapt1 it for molehole's use.
It's 08:48 so, a cup of "Chai", some breakfast, and then the excavations under the stairs. I've also decided on a revised route for the Ethernet cable and the analogue audio link between the living room and whatever ends up as the study upstairs. (I'm still re-thinking arrangements up there, bearing in mind the 178 cartons of books currently still offsite in that warehouse. Nor have I entirely given up thoughts of further tinkering here in the living room. I think the obsolescent minidiscs and obsolete cassettes will all be relocating soon.)
Entropy...
... has massively decreased in the vicinity of the rather useful-looking space that I've just (10:47) finished clearing under the stairs, at the cost of considerably-increased disorder in the already-cluttered space that was my garage. Having initially suspected a couple of years ago the purpose of the chest of drawers (which I've just manoeuvred into the living room) I had naïvely thought I'd emptied the house of all of Christa's shoes. Erm, I was wrong! Guess what was on the shelves I don't now remember putting up behind said chest? Is there an Imelda Marcos gene, do you think? I've also unearthed about two or three cubic feet of twenty-year-old 2000 A.D. comics that I expect Peter may have an opinion2 about.
Can I have another cuppa yet? [Pause] Well, now that the little room upstairs, the hall, the landing, and the stairs are completely cleared — yes you can. It's 11:39, so I think there may even be a choccy biccy on the agenda.
Ecstasy...
... or agony? The book review here made me smile. Source and snippet:
Monogamous animals by definition don't have to compete for reproduction and, as a result, are generally characterized by a low level of sexual activity. But according to Ryan and Jethá humans top a very short list of species that engage in sex for pleasure. "No animal spends more of its allotted time on Earth fussing over sex3 than Homo sapiens," they write. In fact, the animal world is filled with species who confine their sexual behavior to just a few periods each year, the only times when conception is possible. Among apes the only monogamous species are the gibbons whose infrequent, reproduction-only copulations make them much better adherents of the Vatican's guidelines than we are.
But did you ever see a gibbon smile?
I have to say, wielding the Dyson on carpet that's about to disappear is still strangely satisfying. After all, it's my dust! It also works up a fair appetite. Time (12:46) for a spot of lunch, methinks. [Pause] What was that about lunch? I'm starving. But I've nearly finished the new cable run (Cat6 down to the living room in readiness for the mythical new router that my son has promised to supply [should he succeed in unbricking it with another round of firmware] "real soon now"). It's 13:48 and the salmon salad should just about have attained ambient by now.
I got back from a little hunter-gathering just in time to catch a call from Peter Green telling me that the kitchen vinyl has also now arrived; so that's next Monday afternoon taken care of, as well as this Thursday for the carpet fitting. But after that, and failing any emergency summons back up to the Midlands, I can finally start on the massive tidying-up exercise. Meanwhile, a welcome cuppa over at the bungalow while we set the world to rights and admire the bottle brushes once again. (There's a reminder of what they looked like three years ago, here.)
This little exchange on the front page of the latest "Bibliophile" catalogue made me smile:
Later that day
Supper has been supped, and the dishes done. It's 20:07 and I'm now contemplating the work involved in clearing out the kitchen after Thursday's carpet laying and before Monday's vinyl laying. It's a non-trivial exercise.
Tall young Thomas popped by an hour or so ago, with his two kids-who-don't-want-to-sleep in tow. (Been there, done that.) He and Sofie have recently moved to a town house on the site previously occupied by a well-known local Ford dealer so, as the crow flies, they're now only a couple of hundred yards away. He picked up the small pile of CDs he'd lent me when I last visited them for a delicious meal and wished to hear a track or two from The Wall. Last time I played that, it was on the £150,000 Steinway Lyngdorf (Model D) speaker system that Mike and I heard while assessing his new video projector. I fear my little hi-fi sounds somewhat inferior (but at 3.5% of the cost, I'm not all that surprised!)
Another cuppa is now (22:38) called for. [Pause] Right, that's (yawn) enough fun for one day. G'night.