Tuesday Morning

No walk, again. The weather is alright, but Pop had to drive Sunni to a medical appointment. Fate insists on standing between me and “The Man Who Loved Dogs”. I could just take up the novel for my morning reading, but that doesn’t feel right to me. If I cannot take a walk by the weekend, I will give a day to it after this current round with Burlingame’s “Lincoln”, before taking up the next book in my main rotation.

LJ

I don’t believe it. LJ gave me another 20-minute ban. I was so careful on my third attempt to log in. I really wish I could know what error I made. I am tempted to think that it is a glitch on their end. I’m kind of worried about what happens if I cannot get in on my next attempt. Would it be another 20-minute ban? Could it be a 24-HOUR ban? That would be a super, real pain in the ass. Could it be even worse? Is it possible for me to lose my account?

Sweet Breakfast

Lemon meringue pie and coke for breakfast. Fewer walks mean more sweet breakfasts. However, now that the bulk of winter is behind us, my walks should start becoming more regular, though Pop does have a lot more medical appointments these days, not counting those of his friends that he helps with.

Video-Streaming

In getting back into the blurty swing of things, I once again fell out of my video-streaming habit. In tuning in to my fifth episode of “Hannibal”, I am reminded that, independently of my blurting, I was becoming disenchanted with the series. The characters are interesting, but the conventions of crime serials have overwhelmed them, and I cannot stay interested to see what happens next. If I had not spent that fifty dollars on “Roughies”, I might have tried “House of Cards”, the Kevin Spacey show everyone has been raving about for the past year.

Pop

They are back. Pop and Sunni. I am surprised that he stayed the whole time. I expected him to return home and then leave again to pick her up. Maybe he went out for breakfast. I wonder if he is going to sleep all afternoon. He was up at five-thirty. He is putting on a pot of coffee right now.

Orwell

I was wonderfully surprised when I came upon Orwell’s review of Hitler’s book. You know he would have something sharp and provocative to say. The book review was published in March of 1940.

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How was it that he was able to put his monstrous vision across. It is easy to say that at one stage of his career he was financed by the heavy industrialists, who saw in him the man who would smash the socialists and communists. They would not have backed him, however, if he had not talked a great movement into existence already. Again, the situation in Germany, with its seven million unemployed, was obviously favorable for demagogues. But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel in the clumsy writing of “Mein Kampf,” and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches. I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power - till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter - I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs - and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, doglike face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself.

-- George Orwell, “Review of Mein Kampf” in Essays (Everyman’s Library edition, p. 250)

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Of Dying

Pop learned of a friend’s death, a friend of some time ago, presumably from his work days. He was only in his fifties and died of pneumonia. Pop is rather emotional about it and counts his blessings for living such a long life. As well he might. I am kind of awed that he remains as hearty and hale as he is in his seventies. Everything hangs on his health. One knows it cannot last forever, but one prays for another year, for as many years as we can get. I wish these days of just reading and writing could go on forever, or at least for another ten years, if I cannot have twenty years.

My Life

Took the laptop for a wank, and when I brought it back to the big room, I forgot to plug it back in. I think this is the second time I have done this. It’s no biggie, but it sort of punctuates things: I should have found a way to do something with my life.

Sammy

Sammy has been highly resistant to coming inside the house these days. Since the cats are going to be able to stay outside overnight, I give in and take out a plate with a little bit of food for him. But it seems like I am only feeding the birds and the ants, and now I have a mess to pick up. Thanks, Sammy!

Maybe Sammy is very highly nocturnal, even for a cat, the way he doesn't need to eat during the day and seems to hibernate. Which may also explain why he is the most strained and cryingest cat during the small hours of the morning, aching badly to run outdoors. Maybe it is a male thing.

Evening Reading

One of the nice things about having books on recent American history in my reading rotation is that you can leave it aside for days at a time, and then you can pick it up without a disorienting sense of disconnection, because you kind of know the story and the actors, and you are only reading to fill in some more details. I am certainly enjoying that with the book on Reagan, “Rendezvous with Destiny”. This gives me the flexibility to read other books for my evening reading, if I feel up to it and want to move more quickly with them.

Tomato Sauce

Preparing dinner, I see that we only have two cans of tomato sauce left, and our next Grocery Day is not until the Friday after next. I grab both cans. I want to make chili sometime in the next week. Pop must have gone through quite a few cans in the past week, and it would have to be on a three-weeker.

James Lovelock

"Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."

-- James Lovelock

Mr. Lovelock is the famous scientist and environmentalist, the big Gaia man. He is a chipper fellow but his outlook for the planet is quite dark and dispiriting, and he has been right about too many things for us to be dismissive of what he has to say now.

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