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I meant to do an entry for my birthday last Thursday, but things got to feel too hectic. Today I'm home sick from work with one of those kind of comforting general body lethargies with just enough throat scratchiness to let you know it's a virus and not just stress, but not so bad it's that uncomfortable--one of those colds you catch because your body wants you to slow down for the day and stay in bed, and that's what I did most of the day. So not so bad at all.
I indulged in some consumer pleasures on me birthday, involving a gorgeous ranunculus plant and some herbs for my window sill, and two new action figures. I found a Galadriel figure at the KB toys and she is such an absolute diva of an action figure with those wonderful dramatic hands--my new toy makes me smile.(-: See? And I got an Eowyn in the lovely purple gown--hey, who cares that she never wore purple in the movie--it's purple! And she looks lovely nuzzling with my Arwen action figure.
So it was a mostly nice day except for worrying about my great Aunt Kay who had a massive stroke. Aunt Kay died on Friday at 87. And it's sad because I don't think she enjoyed her retirement all that much after working for 47 years for IBM; she didn't do much to build anything into her life once she retired; I think she wanted to go. And she didn't linger, which is probably good and definitely a ton of extra stress off my parents because she left no directives with them on how she wanted to be taken care of in life or death, and they have been stressing the past month since she first went into the hospital, and are continuing to stress over all the legal stuff that has to be done when someone dies.
And I've been having that residual guilt about not visiting her more than I did, which has been assuaged pretty well by my car promptly developing another problem I had to leave it in the shop for today, reminding me that I didn't have the economic means for more travel up to Long Island where she lived. So there's a theme going on here of bad things being good things and good things being bad things, and intertwined harm and help, and since I'm an English major I am fulfilled now that I have identified said theme, and can shut up now.
And I haven't seen much mention on the news, or any on my flist, of this delightful-except-it's-the real-fucking-world world leader wank fest from last week, so I think I will include it here because it amuses me in that droll way, and droll is such a nice word so here's
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States "was concerned about a level of authoritarianism creeping back in the society".
"We don't hesitate to point out to President Putin that he should use the popularity that he has to broaden the political dialogue and not use his popularity to throttle political dialogue and openness in the society," Powell told ABC TV.
That set off an angry rebuke from the Cabinet chief of staff and a calmer retort from Putin, who said the 2000 Florida election fiasco in the US showed the weaknesses of the world's oldest democracy.
Some "see the splinter in another's eye and ignore the log in his own," Putin said.
http://afr.com/articles/2004/03/15/1079199125830.html
I indulged in some consumer pleasures on me birthday, involving a gorgeous ranunculus plant and some herbs for my window sill, and two new action figures. I found a Galadriel figure at the KB toys and she is such an absolute diva of an action figure with those wonderful dramatic hands--my new toy makes me smile.(-: See? And I got an Eowyn in the lovely purple gown--hey, who cares that she never wore purple in the movie--it's purple! And she looks lovely nuzzling with my Arwen action figure.
So it was a mostly nice day except for worrying about my great Aunt Kay who had a massive stroke. Aunt Kay died on Friday at 87. And it's sad because I don't think she enjoyed her retirement all that much after working for 47 years for IBM; she didn't do much to build anything into her life once she retired; I think she wanted to go. And she didn't linger, which is probably good and definitely a ton of extra stress off my parents because she left no directives with them on how she wanted to be taken care of in life or death, and they have been stressing the past month since she first went into the hospital, and are continuing to stress over all the legal stuff that has to be done when someone dies.
And I've been having that residual guilt about not visiting her more than I did, which has been assuaged pretty well by my car promptly developing another problem I had to leave it in the shop for today, reminding me that I didn't have the economic means for more travel up to Long Island where she lived. So there's a theme going on here of bad things being good things and good things being bad things, and intertwined harm and help, and since I'm an English major I am fulfilled now that I have identified said theme, and can shut up now.
And I haven't seen much mention on the news, or any on my flist, of this delightful-except-it's-the real-fucking-world world leader wank fest from last week, so I think I will include it here because it amuses me in that droll way, and droll is such a nice word so here's
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States "was concerned about a level of authoritarianism creeping back in the society".
"We don't hesitate to point out to President Putin that he should use the popularity that he has to broaden the political dialogue and not use his popularity to throttle political dialogue and openness in the society," Powell told ABC TV.
That set off an angry rebuke from the Cabinet chief of staff and a calmer retort from Putin, who said the 2000 Florida election fiasco in the US showed the weaknesses of the world's oldest democracy.
Some "see the splinter in another's eye and ignore the log in his own," Putin said.
http://afr.com/articles/2004/03/15/1079199125830.html
