posts interesting only to me – Page 28

Hullo John got a new ‘puter?

Published on March 6, 2012Leave a comment

Well, yes, I do, as my old one died two weeks back. That was Sandra’s old computer, Id bought for her from a co-worker in 2008 or so and the hard disks just gave up the ghost. Its been through the wars before and she had already lost the data that had been on it a long time ago, so no great loss. Might buy a cheap new harddrive and get it fixed anyway, just for kicks. The new computer is great and I’m well in the honeymoon phase of owning a new computer, except for having to reinstall all my old favourite programmes and settings, which is always a chore. Not of great interest to anyone but me, I know, so have some Alexei Sayle.

Of more interest, this casual suggestion that the US might have experienced its Suez moment:

Humphrey is increasingly of the opinion that we are witnessing the USA’s ‘east of Suez moment’ at which the US is faced with the same strategic challenges that all empires are faced with. The legions will be recalled from Europe soon, and this is going to leave a major series of security and other challenges that need to be filled.

Which would make the War on Iraq something like what the Suez Crisis was for the UK: a point at which America’s military capabilities outreach its political power. It was capable of invading and winning battles, but its military might did not help America reach its wider goals. The War on Iraq was the quintessential late imperial war, one not waged for a concrete, achievable goal, but more to show that the aggressor is still an empire, still top dog. It didn’t quite work out that way, which means the empire is still looking for another enemy to defeat to make everything right again, hence the confrontational stance with Iran.

Posing kittens are posing

Published on March 3, 2012Leave a comment

Hector and Sophie posing for the camera

Sometimes all you want to do is to show off your cats, even slightly unsharp. Hector’s in the front, Sophie, who has adapted the broadband modem she’s sitting on as her latest comfort spot, is in the back. It doesn’t seem to harm the internet speeds, so I let her sleep on it. She seems to need those special places to feel safe, but every now and then she tries a new spot.

Books read February

Published on March 1, 2012Leave a comment

And that’s the second month of 2012 gone, with more books read: seven in total, five science fiction, two history. Need more diversity. I could’ve read more, but got bogged down in one book I didn’t finish, then was ill and disinclined to do anything but look at the telly for a week. I also only managed to review three of them in the month I read them, which isn’t that good either, but it seems I can do only a review a week or so, sometimes two. First world problems?

The End in Africa — Alan Moorehead
The third and final part of Alan Moorehead’s Africa trilogy, reporting on the war in North Africa in 1942-1943.

Seventeenth-century Burma and the Dutch East India Company — Wil O. Dijk
A very interesting, data intense look at an almost forgotten part of Dutch colonial and trading history.

Valor’s Choice — Tanya Huff
The first in a new to me series of military sf books, better than it needed to be.

White Dragon — Anne McCaffrey
The third Dragonriders of Pern novel which I’ve been rediscovering once Anne McCaffrey’s death last year remined me of them. Much better than I remembered.

The People’s Chef — Ruth Brandon
The biography of Victorian chef Alexis Soyer, something Sandra had been wanting me to read last year.

The Better Part of Valor — Tanya Huff
After I’d read the first in the series, I had to read its sequel too.

The Heart of Valor — Tanya Huff
And the third in the series too. All three were eminently readable and fun. What’s more there wasn’t any of the more nasty politics some mil-sf series have at their heart.

Osama — Lavie Tidhar
9/11 meets Life on Mars. A book stuffed with symbolism almost to the point of choking on it, but which just about worked despite or because of it.

Sadie Hawkins Day lives

Published on February 29, 2012Leave a comment

the first appearance of Sadie Hawkins Day

L’il Abner, All Capp’s hillbilly humour/adventure comic strip was of course hugely popular for decades and hugely influencial on American popular culture. One of the things it popularised was Sadiw Hawkins Day, an annual day on which women of l’il Abner’s hillbilly town of Dogpatch got to propose to their men; the rest of the year they had to sit around and wait for their lazy and marriage afearing beaus to propose to them. Even on Sadie Hawkins day they still had to ketch them to actually be able to propose and All Capp managed to milk the pursuit of L’il Abner by his girlfriend Daisy Mae for decades before he eventually married them off.

Sadie Hawkins Day meanwhile had become popular outside the L’il Abner strip as well, merging with an older tradition of February 29th being the only day in the year that women could ask men out to dance, or marriage. That sort of topsy turvy craziness was hilarious back when gender roles were somewhat more strict than in modern times, but Sadie Hawkins day still is celebrated.

As my foster brother found out this morning. He has been living together with his partner for years now, they have two children together and while she would like to get married, he was in no hurry to do so. Which is why a few weeks back she took the matters into her own hands and asked my father for his hand, then surprised him this morning with a true old fashioned marriage proposal, having first collected several witnesses including his daughters and my mother, going down on one knee and popping the big question. He said yes of course; he’d better if he knew what was good for him.

So congratulations to the happy couple and I hope to get the wedding invitation soon.

What she said

Published on February 26, 2012Leave a comment

He died around midnight, just a couple days after his 33rd birthday and three years, almost to the day, after his diagnosis. In all, we were together 15 years. I have very few regrets about the time I spent with Scott.

That was the point when I lost it for a while. Until then I could read Betsy Megan’s incredible article on what it feels like losing your spouse (found via Metafilter) dispassionately, but that little paragraph, the matter of fact way in which she writes about his death and the conclusion just hit home. That was exactly what it feels like. All else being equal, I’d rather would’ve liked to be able to spent more time with Sandra, but the time we did have together was worth it. Just because we’ve reached terminus doesn’t make the journey worthless.

Hector and Sophie asleep on the sofa

I’d been thinking a lot about Sandra this week anyway, having been home sick from Wednesday, bringing thrown back inside my own head, sleeping a lot, not being able to concentrate much when awake, thinking about Sandra. Work and the distractions of various entertainments normally keep too much hurt at bay, but without them I had nowhere to hide. The cats weren’t much of a help either, as you can see, though it has been nice sleeping in a bed with them at night.

We decided to get married. Initially we had intended to wait until after we both finished engineering school, but I have never been too fond of weddings and it seemed to suit him well enough not to bother for the first 12 years we were together. It was no lack of commitment; we bought a house together and loved each other very much. Marrying him was part a practical decision—so that I could speak for him if he couldn’t, and so that inheritance sorts of things would be easier to sort out. But at this point, it was also to have some good news to tell people, to offset the bad news, as it were.

Sandra being congratulated by the wedding registrar

Again, this was more or less why we gotten married as well, two years ago when Sandra was scheduled for yet another very intense operation, to make sure that all the legal niceties were tied off just in case and as a sign of our love for each other. (Big thumbs up for the Amsterdam civil service btw for making that possible so quickly btw.) I still wear my wedding ring daily, as a reminder and symbol of our love. In my head I’m still married.

Beyond that, it is hard not to feel perhaps even selfish. Of course I miss him for himself, his sense of humor, and all the things I fell in love with him for. But I seem somehow to feel his loss most keenly for all the things he did for me that I can’t or don’t like doing: creating and maintaining an amazing home network that’s now gradually deteriorating in ways I don’t understand; cooking every other time we ran out of leftovers; doing nearly all the shopping (I dislike shopping); tackling the monthly bills; snuggling when I was feeling down; pushing me to keep trying; and even just telling me, gently, when I was being foolish. (It’s an ongoing quandary for me in social settings, too: explain to someone I just met that I’m a widow, which alarms and flusters people and is not a good introduction to the funny story I intend to tell, or go on referring to “my husband” in the past tense and just don’t mention why?)

This, so very much. I miss Sandra for her cooking and gardening, her erudition, for being able to talk with her about politics or books in ways I could do with nobody else, almost as much as for herself. But then those sort of things are also what makes somebody your partner, aren’t they?

And that dillemma of how to refer to Sandra, boy do I recognise it. Refering to her as my wife gives the wrong expectation and you don’t want to cause other people potential for embarassement, but to call her my late wife, or deceased wife, or to myself as a widower seems both a bit dramatic/attention seeking and often irrelevant in the context. Not to mention a bit heavy to lay on people.

I had originally planned to talk about this article about most common cooking/baking mistakes and what Sandra had taught me about cooking (first rule: clean as you go), but that’ll have to wait until another Sunday…