if this is tuesday then it must be sesame chicken.....

ok, so i work til 6 on tuesday.....and have gotten into the habit of ordering chinese when i walk out of the building...so that i drop by on my way home to pick it up.......and be done with dinner by 7ish....in time to walk on the treadmill during my hollywood gossip shows.....today was oscar nomination day.....and our good ole ky boy george clooney was nominated in three categories, including best director for good luck and good night....ya gotta love an outspoken liberal democrat, especially one with enough nerve to take on bill o-reilly.....i have seen few of the films nominated......given that the films i saw twice were barely mentioned in the lists.......pride and prejudice picked up a few.......gosh, i just loved that film......the kind of films that get nominated don't get shown on screens within 40 miles of our home.......and unless we care to make an evening of it....we wait til they cone out on dvd.....the film that i really want to see now...tristam shandy....may turn up in lexington at the single art house theatre.....maybe......it sounds quite clever....a film about the making of a movie about a book that can't be filmed......and a period piece at that.....but i digress.....tuesday is also gilmore girl day........we have recently started to get the wb out of lousiville with our antenae......and i rode the exercycle for the full 60 minutes of a new episode.....after a 2 mile walk.......wow.....working on the calorie deficit......and now that i have my wi-fi palm...i can scan my usual sites......and play solitaire and ride....and watch tv at the same time........life is good...............speaking of good...i have purchased an extra cradle so that i can hook up the palm at work without having to disconnect all of the connectors at home......it is so nice to listen to music while i eat lunch at my desk and.........read updated news online........the program that i used to download the music has alphabetized the tunes.......and so the randomness is not so random so much as unexpected.....i like this woman imogen heap......so reverbs so sweetly.....and this group vasen that plays an instrumental called polska pa.......it sounds vaguely medieval and country fiddle all in one...........and my purely random mountain goats song pale green things reminds me of something raffi never got around to recording.......it is quite sweet and evocative.............happliy i am running short on tuesday things to do.....and could actually get to bed by 10:00 if i hurry this blog along...............

it's elemental......

ok, so 7th grade science has moved on, for the most part, from the research question to the periodic table of elements.......and so we had a rousing game of name that element from the abbreviation over dinner........and i was pleasantly surprised that my spouse and i made a decent showing......when one combines the elements with nutritive qualities with those made into jewelry and bike parts or womd..or inert gases..........the only ones we didn't know fell into the other category.....which we concluded were not worth knowing....i am joking of, course.......because they must be memorized....but to the 49/50ish crowd.....if they couldn't be recalled from college chem classes over a 25ish year span......then they must not have been all that important...........

arctic monkey.....

ok, so does my mp3 connection have an artic monkey selection to share?.......heavens.....i sound almost like a junkie..........

on reading one's own blog.....

ok, so i regularly read my own blog.....sometimes in the morning because my brain is too foggy to remember what and/or if i posted the evening before......but mostly random archival entries....that dwell on episodes that i can barely recall......which is the point to this madness......to chronicle what i will barely recall in the all-too-soon future.......my brother-in-law in upstate new york has disclosed to me the alzheimer's testing that he has begun.....benchmarking is how he described it to me.....but i know better....anybody who has experienced the intellectual decline of a loved one fears that the same will happen closer to home......and this fear is tangible.......which is why i try so hard NOT to read my blog in the morning.....for fear that i will have no recollection whatsoever......and what does one do with that fear......when my grandmother was senile she hid grapefruits......under the covers on her side of the bed....from my blind grandfather.......lord knows why.......since we rarely buy grapefruits i doubt that the grapefruit test for senility can be applied to me.......no......my version will appear in purely personal ways.......like in the blogs that i cannot remember posting....which i won't offer up as dinner conversation...in hopes that nobody else will know that i am going downhill........sounds like a plan to me.................

addendum.....my entire blog.....all the entries since april 2002...fit onto the memory of my new palm tx......not on the expansion card.....on the memory....wow.......

what i didn't get /started/done on sunday.....

ok, so yesterday i had every intention of starting on my major book shifting project.......culling through the shelves for books that are too young for the current crowd, or books that are no longer of interest/relevance.....to make room for the books that are stacked...seems a better plan than putting up more shelving.......given that we'd basically have to add on a room to put up more shelving.......but after i tidied up the guest room....the epicenter of this endeavor.....the room with the most stacks........i digressed into exercise.........how's that for classic avoidance behavior......even exercise is preferable to work.........and so i will reschedule......or maybe do a bit here and there.......it occurs to me that if i go through the shelves in the back room....there might be space for the reference stuff......which would then make room for literature in the guest room......., or at least some literature.....especially if i move my women's lit collection upstairs to our room, but that would mean that i would have to go through and trim down the mysteries.......ah well........you get my drift.....it is a domino thing......and it will take some time to get the domino effect in place...............

bootlegs.....

ok,so a couple of weeks ago marketplace, the npr radio show broadcast from china.......and one of the places featured was a bootleg dvd store in shanghai......a location certain to be selling the bootleg version of...the latest pride and prejudice.......i watched the a&e version this afternoon, while riding the exercycle (for 60 minutes) and then while simply sitting back and saying the lines under my breath in synch with the actors......the wait until the official dvd comes out is killing me...alas, i know of nobody going to the far east any time soon......

bbc world service....

ok, so i succumbed to one of life's most basic pleasures........snuggling down under the covers after the radio-alarm kicks on at 6:30 am....to listen to 30 minutes of the bbc......the sunday morning edition that includes a news roundup......an instant guide to the american central bank....and 15 minutes of cricket and soccer scores........none of which affects me directly.......but it is a pleasant backdrop to the snuggling down under the covers.....and it beats getting up to the chill of the morning before i am quite ready to do so.......one of these days i must look into cricket scoring.......which doesn't make any sense......as well as read up on european soccer cup play........is there one cup....or multiple cups.....that involve world teams rather than just european ones?........regardless......i am content to listen to the prattle about test matches and on to next rounds.....until 7:00 am when the devil's own radio show comes on ......calling all pets......oy.....produced in wisconsin, it would seem......and featuring an endless series of call-in questions about dog and cat care/feeding/training......i always leap out of bed when i hear the telltale theme music.........

palm tx

ok,so......i can post from the palm.......yesseree!........

a million little pieces.....

ok, so i have spent some time discussing with my eldest (the author) the ins and outs of the semi-autobiography a million little pieces...the book by the writer that oprah skewered of late.......and while i understand the ire of the writing crowd.......i do feel some sympathy for someone who portrays himself as something other than what he is.....i have neither endured 3 hours of jail...nor 3 days of imprisonment.....but i can understand the basic desire to embellish.......as much as i can understand the desire to conceal.......and that is where this guy loses me.........i simply omit those details i do not want known......rather than embellish.....and so i am at a loss to understand his perdicament.....in making his life seem worse than it was.............lord knows i have spent a lifetime keeping hidden those details that would prove my life worse than i choose to remember.......exactly when i will be totally honest is yet to be determined.......when i am 60? or 70? or 80?......certainly not in my 50's while i still have children at home.......my book club is reading lamb.....a tongue-in-cheek recollection of the life of christ as told by his childhood friend biff......and while i know this to be a made-up tale......it sounds no more made up than the four gospels.......when you get down to essentials......with angels, and wisemen, and miracles...and most stories differ from gospel to gospel as to who was there or what was said....so why is it that millions of folks are willing to swallow a virgin birth, but balk at the gap between a 3 hour detainment or 3 months in jail.......none of the above or all of the above can be believable....................

symphony 31 in d......

ok, so i like mozart......i really, really like mozart.......one of these days i will make a pilgrimage to vienna or salzburg or liepzig to hear mozart played in situ.........but until then i will be forced to listen to cd's.......on this his 250th........his mm must have been so very proud.......

have pity....

ok, so...have some pity on my eldest child.......who must endure complete and utter adoration when he chances to drop by home for the smallest reason.........we sit/stand at attention to his every word.......just like we did all those years ago when he was the first born baby......only now he is the closest to home....and when he does come home we are so very glad to see him......well.....it is somehwat embarassing to relate just how much we dote upon him when he visits.......did i mention just how proud we are of him?......................

speaking of hope......

ok, so.....i really need a haircut......but i have this crazy scheme to grow my hair another 5 inches and donate the lot to one of those children's cancer wigs organizations.......the only problem with this plan is that my hair has ceased to grow ever since i made this personal pledge.....my head has not sprouted any more white or greys.....so it is not as if it is focused on the aging of the scalp end......it basically just....sits there looking so antiquated for my age......

all or nothing......

ok, so hope springs eternal for the mm........i have downloaded numerous treasures to my new plam, including purchased spanish language flashcards.....while i completely understand that the good lord divied up the talent unevenly in our family....i still live in the expectation that i will eventually recall enough of a foreign language to say that i am multilingual.......30 years of trying to teach myself french has come to......well......i cannot call myself anything more than entry level......but i am comfortable with what little i do know......and so i have moved on to spanish......useful with clients.......and with my fantasy of walking to santiago de compestella......as a pilgrim......only i see myself as the kind of pilgrim that stays in hotels rather than in hostels....but i digress........i have downloaded both verbs and vocubulary.....as i said initially...hope springs eternal.......

the green rubberband.....

ok, so i will share the good with the bad......the good news about my palm........i finally figured out, with help from the palm help desk...that the tool bar disappeared because i used an incompatible program to download music to me storage card....go figure....and after i did a hard reboot.......and resynched......all is well.......for now.....the bad news.......the palm people included a cheesey flip cover rather than a real case....and the flip cover wouldn't stay on....so my $300 palm spent its first day with a green rubberband holding on the cheesey flip cover.....i was much too embarassed to show my new toy to anybody......given the rubberband.....i am certain that this flip-cover thing is designed to nudge buyers into investing in an expensive leather cover/case......i am tempted to resist this sort of hostage-purchase.........but the rubberband thing looks so......boondocks-tech.......and not the image i am going for.......ahh well.....i did get to listen to music over my lunch.......just love my new slow-core selections................especially the polish instrumental folks.......

future shock

ok, so when i was in high school....int he early 70's....we were coerced into reading a book called future shock.....which prophesized that technology would come at us so quickly we would all go crazy...or at least be numbed into submission......and this evening that book came very close to reality.....i picked up my new palm y=tx at 5:45....allowed it to charge a full 3 hours before messing with it......synched it with my outlook data.....and then spent the past 2 hours trying to download music.......if i had high blood pressure i would have stroked out by now.......how is it that the idiots who design these devil's devices make them so complicated.....and i say this as someone who is relatively savvy........as i speak, music is transferring onto my palm, not onto my purchased 512 meg expansion card....because at no point in the setup did it ask where to send the data.........oy!....not that it matters...this device did not come with headphones.....so umless i can dig some up i will have to rely on it's tiny speakers.........again....oy!

liz durrett

ok, so....many thanks to honestly old for her valuable links to free downloadable mp3's.........all if have to do is to sift through the chaff to find the golden grains........i have learned a new term, thanks to reese.......slowcore.....really describes the style of music i like better than most monickers........and i like liz durrett......who reminds me of beth orton, as promised in the blurb introducing her downloads.......so far the pieces that i have downloaded have been better than i expected.......again, many thanks to a blogger wise beyond her years.........

st. anthony......

ok, so i am not a catholic, but i will admit to lifting up prayers to the patron saint of lost things today......our cat phillida (esrkine-brown) failed to awake us this morning with her hunger pangs......failed to leap in the front door when we let out the dog.....failed to show up at all before we left for work...both ernst and cayle canvassed the yard and the surrounds in case her limp body was clinging to life just outside our view...........and so i fretted all day that something but....there she sat, regally indifferent on the back table......and somewhat startled when i scooped her up with a hearty amen, and thanks to st. anthony........only the good lord knows where she spent the evening/the day.....or how she happened to get into the house...........

broadening one's musical horizons.....

ok, so.......given that the christmas collection download season is over......i am forced to branch out and seek new (and free) musical relief for what ails me in the deep midwinter....happily, salon.com has anticipated my need for new music......and offers daily downloads in it's audiophile section....today i downloaded cat power, a piece called the greatest.......i had assumed that cat power was a band....not a throaty female going solo.......i like her immensely.....and then there is vasen with polska pa overvanigan...they're not from around here, as they say......but i found this tune melodic and something i could listen to at work...gotta do better than my workmate who listens to the same enya cd every day....not that i don't like enya, but everyday is a bit much...........i also downloaded a song from a band called ark from sweden......haven't listened to that yet.....as well as something from a band called i love you but i choose darkness.............i plan to drop by office depot tomorrow to buy my new palm tx......along with a 2-year replacement plan......well worth the bucks as i learned from the ill-fated ipaq........maybe a 1 meg memory card as well.......i was going to wait but i miss listening to music over lunch......and now i have a wider range of songs to listne to while i munhc on my lowfat, lowcalorie fare........

the c-dub

ok, so it was with great amusement that i read on-line about the merger between the wb network and cbs/upn......to be known later this year as....the cw network.......i wonder if they will sell tshirts and/or clever coasters........

pandemic.....

ok, so i want it noted on my permanent record that i made no preparations for y2k.........not one......mostly because i was busy, but also because i thought it was silly......but the possible flu pandemic.......i cannot but help but be sucked in with the possibilities......being in public health magnifies the potential drama...friday there was a state summit on the subject, calling for each county to hold planning forums.........but such drama only resonates upon family lore......i was weaned on the 1918 flu epidemic.....when my crown grandparent's 1st born son perished...donald was his name......it is hard to disavow threats of death when one's own family has experienced a similar loss......not a single of one of my relations died in wwI or II, korea, viet nam......the middle east.......war protests....hurricanes......just that one baby in the 1918 flu epidemic......and so....i now have lots of info on the steps that families, businesses, municipalities should take to prepare.....i have water and canned goods in my basement.....but as i have said before....the best way to stave off a disaster is to be prepared for one..........