2010 — 18 October: Monday
Suddenly1 it's Monday. So where did that evening escape to? Let alone the entire weekend? I shall do the last of the dishes — the now empty crockpot — and call it a day, as it were. G'night.
Brrr again
Rather cloudy, and chilly,2 out there. I have a couple of "must dos" this morning, starting with yet another trip to the Postie depot to pick up some delayed snail mail sent to dear Mama (but notification of which to me was wrongly delivered to my neighbour's now-empty house — this is not a brilliant system, but until I have power of attorney I can't set up a proper permanent redirection). I also need to replenish her choccie supply. It's about the only thing that still makes her smile!
It's 08:40 and counting.
Somehow I missed the news that Benoit Mandelbrot died on my birthday last week. My friend Carol in New York did some programming for him in years gone by. How Time flies. It's nearly 20 years since Carol sent me a lovely pair of books (Mathematical People and [you guessed it] More Mathematical People):
Speaking of books, I flipped through the second of those Math books before I sent them (I had seen first when it first appeared — both Fran and Ted, Jean's husband, had copies). Ted and/or Fran know (knew in some cases) lots of the people — Mina Rees, Knuth, Phil Davis, Albers, Dantzig, Lax. Benoit Mandelbrot is (was?) at IBM Research and I have written programs for him. Jean does all the complex stuff to get his (many) articles printed just so. He is an absolute maniac when it comes to the appearance of his formulas!
Right. Nearly two hours later dear Mama's electoral registration (already a red warning) has been filled in. I shudder to think of trying to get her to vote. I now know she won £25 from ERNIE last month. Her final batch of meals on wheels payments is now sorted. And I've negotiated a useful reduction in my next annual car insurance renewal — a relentless pensioner/widower without scruples and with time on his hands. Don't mess with me!
Time to hit the road again. [Pause] Trip #2 complete. Unload accumulated (mostly house-cleaning) goodies, quick pit stop, and off we jolly well go again. I do not begin to understand how Christa efficiently ran a household and did her paid job... unless the key word is "efficiently", of course. I am (still) missing a few tricks, no doubt. I've also lined up a chat with dear Mama's new GP to explore, no doubt gently at first, why there's no evidence of any sign of an NHS psychiatric assessment over two months down the road (as it were). It's enough to make you mad (wait! she is already).
As I munch my lunch (healthy chicken salad) and listen numbly to the BBC Radio 4 news telling me all about a variety of imminent threats and attacks up to, and including, cyber warfare... and the fact that the cut in Child Benefit raises more than is being contributed by our banking friends... I once again recall HL Mencken, and take enormous comfort once again from this cool advice:
There's a certain irony, it...
... seems to me, in renewing your car insurance in the morning, and then finding out (the hard way) just how convoluted the insurance company's claims process is in the afternoon. I'd just pulled on to my drive after taking my main co-pilot out for tea and a Boston Brownie when he noticed a couple of chips on my windscreen. So I can now add "Autoglass" to the list of helpful companies; but not before being given a magnificent runaround by my insurance company which is, to be fair, right in the middle of changing "service providers". My old (that is, current) policy number wasn't coming up on the screen of the current (that is, new) system on the phone number I was given "just in case" this morning. But the new guys gave me another number (not the right one, as it happens) and I eventually got talking to a young lady who passed me along to "Autoglass". Their chap thought the size of the chips was probably too small to be fixable, but advised me to take the car along to my nearest depot for a quick look/see.
So I now know where Unit 15, Southern Road, lurks in Soton... just along from Solent Flour Mills (or, to be more precise, the building that says "Solent Flour Mills" along the top). And the good news is, the damage is indeed too small and very unlikely to spread. I was shown (in their skip) various samples of windscreen damage that could or could not be repaired, which was an interesting lesson in what to look for.
And, had I not been losing my windscreen chip virginity I would probably have missed the live performance by the Smith Quartet of Jon Lord's "Sarabande" as I drove back through quite busy traffic (but, miraculously, always in the lane that didn't seem to be getting held up) so the unanticipated extra trip this afternoon was quite useful all round. It's now 18:02 and I've powered the car down for the evening! Where's my cuppa?
Yawning
It's only 22:54 but I'm cream-crackered. G'night.