Archive for June, 2016
the young Darwin
Reading Voyage of the Beagle in preparation for our Galápagos trip, I am finding the young Charles Darwin unexpectedly charming, in a sweet and very geeky wayk. The man is (was, but as long as I’m reading the book he’s still alive and speaking) an absolute monster for detail; he can go on for pages […]
assorted comments while watching the House sit-in
Holy fucking shit. The US House Minority Leader James Clyburn has just said that he’s divided Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail” into 46 parts, and they’re going to read it out loud in the course of the sit-in tonight. These are people intensely aware of their history and of the history they’re […]
WIP and FOs, because why not
I think it’s been a really long time, since I posted any knitting photos here. This weekend will be our third Black Sheep Squared knitters’ retreat – the ‘retreat’ is basically just me inviting people to stay at our lake house in order to attend the Black Sheep Gathering in nearby Eugene. I am hoping […]
windfall
Good heavens. I’ve just gotten a credit on Amazon from the Apple price-fixing settlement … for a hair under $250. The time span the settlement covers falls within my expat years; I bought a *lot* of books in those years. What I’d liek to do with it is to keep it until September in hopes […]
Why it’s not good to set up memorial crosses for people you don’t know
What I said on Facebook, about the guy who made 49 crosses and brought them to Orlando, to represent the people killed the last week: “If someone put up a cross for me when I died, I’d come back and haunt them!” I also noted that I do think the people wearing giant angel wings […]
There *is* something you can do
It’s a bit depressing to watch the reaction to this morning’s Orlando shootings. The right blames Obama. The left blames Trump. People screaming to ban refugees, ban guns, their solution will fix everything. It’s as if the most important thing in the wake of tragedy is to see who can seize it first to drive […]
and on the medical front
In other news, I had an odd but ultimately useful followup visit with my gastroenterologist yesterday. First I waited 10-15 minutes in the waiting room, because they tell you to show up 15 minutes early even though all I had to do was confirm I’m on the same meds. Then the nursing assistant showed me […]
social media quicksand
Yesterday, an old friend of mine (by which I mean we were good friends in maybe 4-9th grade, saw each other sometimes in high school and had no contact after that until Facebook came around) posted something on FB about how the difference between people who fulfill their dreams and those who don’t is that […]