Well, um, no, I don't think so

I just received an ad from audible.com.  One of the recommended books is The forgotten room:

"It's 1945: When the critically wounded Captain Cooper Ravenal is brought to a private hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side, young Dr. Kate Schuyler is drawn into ..."

Thanks anyway, audible.

I'm disconnected

Last week, television, radio, and web were awash with "appreciations" on the occasion of David Bowie's death.  A few days later, came another dozen reports celebrating the life of  Alan Rickman.

To judge from the media attention, both these guys were famous and admired.  I don't know anything about either of them except that the few times I saw pictures of Mr. Bowie he looked creepy.

I expect I'm going to have a similar feeling of being completely out of it when Mick Jagger passes on.

Update: And now Glenn Frey is being celebrated.  Who?

A lovely day yesterday

• Talking to some new friends while waiting for the 8 o'clock mass to end so we could go in for the 9:30.
• Assisted at communion without dropping any hosts or spilling any wine.
• Pastry and coffee and conversation with Katka and the wonderful wife on the terrace at Randolph's.  Very European.
• Coffee and San Cristobal on the deck, while reading a Patrick Melrose novel until joined for more conversation and laughter and a fashion show, first by Cassie and Abby after they finished shopping at Viva Vienna and before heading back to Great Falls for a birthday part, and then by Katka and the wonderful wife.
• Visiting with Roger and Joseph when they came to retrieve Joe's Viva Vienna toys that had been left at our house.
• 
• Watching Katka and Joseph play ball.
• All of this in glorious weather.
• Fish tacos (with a wonderful lime-cilantro sauce) for supper.
• An old article by Avery Dulles.
• A couple episodes of The West Wing.
• And so to bed.

He who hesitates . . .

Our 2003 Prius had been showing its age -- electronic door locks that don't work; air conditioning that's, shall we say, unreliable; a broken lid for the console between the driver's and passenger's seats; more dings and scrapes than you can count -- so we'd been thinking about replacing it, maybe in April.

Hah!

Two weeks ago the battery died.  (No, not THE battery; rather the one that Prius calls the auxiliary battery and that I call the 12-volt battery.)

I hoped we could buy an el cheapo replacement somewhere so we wouldn't need to have our trade-in towed into the dealership.

I wasn't much in the mood to do the deed myself, however, so I jump started the car and took it to the repair shop to let them do it.  Good thing, because the deal wasn't as simple as you might think.  Not simple at all, in fact.  It wound up taking the shop three days to obtain the correct replacement part.  But I don't want to get into that.  Suffice it to say that parts and labor came to about $175.  If we'd gone car shopping just a little bit sooner, we could have saved ourselves that expense (and a full tank of gas).

 Good timinng, huh?

Postscript:

Trusted Travelers

That's me and my wonderful wife.  Officially!

Yesterday morning we drove out to Dulles Airport for our Global Entry interview with US Customs and Border Protection; we received email notification of our approval a few hours later.

If it works as advertised, Global Entry will allow us to bypass the long lines at customs when we return from overseas.  And it will allow us to do this because, you know, we are trusted travelers.  Officially!

Still in the works is our application to TSA's Pre-check program, which -- if it works as advertised -- will make it easier to get through the security line when leaving this country.  Our Pre-check interview is scheduled for a few weeks from now.

Hmmm. At least one of us got it right

Vienna		Rutherfordton		Santa Ana
Winter storm warning		Winter storm warning		Clear skies
27°		27°		71°

Good riddance . . .

. . . to January!

On 20 percent of the days, the high temperature was lower than the average low temperature.

Where's Waldo, um, er, ah, I mean Nexus?

For the past two weeks The Wonderful Wife has been badgering me lovingly inquiring as to where I might have left our Nexus tablet.

My replies -- "I didn't leave it anywhere" and "I never use the thing" -- were met with, shall we say, incredulity and the suggestion that "You probably left it at the ice skating rink" or "Maybe it's under the seat in the Buick; you should take the seat out and see" or "I'll bet you left it at Cassie and Roger's; you should go ransack their house looking for it."

Her nagging gentle suggestions finally moved me to look for the thing yesterday.  No, not at the skating rink or in the Buick or at Cassie and Roger's, but in our living room, our spare bedroom, our computer room, and finally one of rooms that the wonderful wife uses for her glass work.

And I found it!

The wonderful wife hasn't yet explained to my why I hid it with her glass.

But I'm sure she will.

=================
Footnote 1.  The Nexus wasn't actually in the wonderful wife's studio:

Nor in the annex to her studio:

Rather it was in the annex to the annex:

Footnote 2.  The Nexus is cool -- and God knows I love my Kindle! -- but I sure wish both of them had some kind of alarm built in, an alarm that would help us locate them when they're "lost" and that we could activate by dialing a special phone number or clicking a button on a web site.  

Pain de Viande

This recipe is not only "The Best Meatloaf I've Ever Made," it's also one of the best meatloaves I've ever tasted -- tender and juicy and delicious.

And served with baked potato on Tuesday evening, it was a big hit with the others in our house too.

And meatloaf sandwich, which I had for lunch on Wednesday, is always good.

And I enjoyed the meatloaf sandwich I had for supper Wednesday evening, too, after coming home from the fabulous granddaughter's ice skating lesson.

And it was every bit as good at lunch on Thursday.

But I have to admit, by that time I was thinking of Alan Arkin's chicken rant from "Little Miss Sunshine":

When was the last time you thought of mucilage?

Milestone

Our LeSabre turned over a lot of zeroes on its odometer today.

A lot of zeroes, yes, but 91000 is remarkably low mileage for a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old car, no?

Insane air traffic

Mandela and me

We weren't exactly close.  Still, . . .

Back when I was still working, the carpool dropped me off in front of the office around 7:00 one morning in 1994(?) and who should I see striding quickly down 14th Street for his daily constitutional with a contingent of security officers all around him but Nelson Mandela!  Well, I was tempted to kneel down and hope for his blessing, but instead I started applauding and I was immediately joined by others nearby.  The great man turned, smiled, and waved!

Katka and I were at the Kennedy Center last night.  When the conductor -- my very unfavorite Christoph Eschenbach -- took the podium, he turned to the audience and said (or words to this effect) "Today one of the very greatest of world leaders passed away.  Nelson Mandela died this afternoon. [The audience gasped audibly.]  We will play "Air on the G String" by J.S. Bach.  When we finish, please do not applaud.  Spend a minute in silence."  That minute of silence was deafening!  It was all very moving.

I have to admit I was wondering how Eschenbach would segue from that to "Overture to the Magic Flute."  Simple.  And fabulously effective.  After the moment of silence, he simply left the stage.  He returned a minute or two later to begin the concert normally.

Quote of the day

"Willie Mays's glove is where triples go to die."

Quote of the day

"Life is short, and then -- oh, shit! -- you're dead.  And you don't know you're dead."

More Zen

You really have to watch this in "full screen" mode.

"Duck walk?"  Did I hear you ask "Duck walk?"  Yeah!

IDP

Walk into the AAA office on Old Courthouse Road with your passport photos, driver's license, and application form already filled out and you can get you International  Driving Permit in less than 5 minutes.

Five minutes, that is, if you don't count the wait.

Count the wait and it's a full sixty minutes.

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

Your 3 minutes and 44 seconds of Zen

View from our window

A doe and her fawn feast on our blooming hostas. Bon appetit!

Click the photo for a better view.