Personal Musings category archive

I trained as an historian and, through that training and a lifetime of reading history and sociology, I am convinced that the past illuminates the present. Accordingly, I recommend A History of China by William Eberhard, as China is important and most Americans, including me, are woefully ignorant about its history and culture–well, not just ignorant, more like farcically misinformed and bigoted.

I do not claim that it answers every question nor that it is without bias (I don’t know enough about Chinese history to make that claim), but the author’s credentials are impeccable and the book is readable and accessible, having been written for the general reader; it can give perspective to why China is what it is now.

You can get it from Project Gutenberg (easily the most noble of internet projects) and read it with the free FBreader.

Maps of China through its history from Chinahighlights.com illuminate the narrative.

To get a sense in English of day-to-day life in ancient China, you probably can’t do better than Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee mysteries, which I first encountered in a marvelous little bookshop on 33rd Street across from Madison Round Garden (it’s not at Madison Square any more and it is round) in New York City when I was involved in an extensive training project there in the early ’80s. I’m rereading them now.

When I checked into the ER Wednesday afternoon, the nurse asked, “Do you suffer from depression?”

I said, “Only since the last election.”

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I received a call on my cellphone the other day.

Thankfully, it was not from the Health Care Enrollment Center, the phishing scam that calls me pretending that they have “received my inquiry” when I have made no inquiry. (I keep blocking their numbers and they keep calling with new, likely spoofed numbers.)

It was from a legit polling outfit calling about Tuesday’s election. I answered frankly about my political predilections.

One of the questions was, “What made you choose between Ralph Northam and Ed Gillespie.”

I said, “One is a good and decent human being; the other is not.”

At which point the pollster lost it.

As I have mentioned here from time to time, I do not follow incoming returns the night of the election. Why, I ask myself, should I waste hours looking at the television when I can read the results in 15 minutes tomorrow morning?

Tonight, though, my friend dropped in on the returns and shared some happy news.

I must confess, I am looking forward to tomorrow morning. But, for now, it’s time for another session with Nero Wolfe.

In the silence between the third and fourth movements of the first piece, as the conductor raised his baton, the cell phone rang from somewhere in the back of the concert hall. The conductor stood, motionless, as he and the musicians waited in silence for quiet to return.

Fortunately, I had remembered to mute my phone, so it wasn’t me.

Afterthought:

Later, as I returned from intermission, I remarked to the usher, who was quietly ushering in the hallway, “I’m glad I muted my cell phone.”

He was still laughing as I reentered the auditorium.

Rex Stout was a damned fine writer.

I have enjoyed his Nero Wolfe mysteries from the first time that I read Some Buried Casar in the back seat of my parents’ car on the way to visit my grandmother.

Now that I am rereading them from the perspective of having made my living with my pen for a lifetime, I realize that the man was not “just a mystery writer” (Mickey Spillane was “just a mystery writer”), he was a wordsmith. Like Kerry Greenwood, he made words dance.

When I was a corporate trainer, we fought gobbledygook all the time. It was quite a challenge to get trainees to internalize a growing awareness of this verity.

It has become a back alley from a Law and Order episode, filled with with debris, overflowing dumpsters, lurking muggers and con artists, and the occasional dead body.

JoCat passed away today. She had been fighting irritable bowel disease and it appeared to be under control with proper diet, but, this morning, she started to cough and wheeze (beyond that, I will spare you the details). Before we could get her to a vet emergency room, she passed.

We took her to our regular vet, and the best guess of the vet tech was that she threw a blood clot unrelated to the irritable bowel syndrome. Apparently, cats may do that.

She was a good cat, affectionate as long as she got her way (after all, she was a cat), and she had a life full of love.

She had been a member of the family for 13 years, since my father passed away and she became an inheritance (my brother cares for her sister).

She was a good, if demanding and persnickety, friend, and she is missed.

From Pine View Farm is 12 years old today.

Who woulda thunk?

Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about web hosting, HTML, CSS, Linux, SQL, and computers. I’ve also learned a lot, mostly from Republicans, about hypocrisy, venality, and scurrilousness.

I value the former. I deplore the latter.

Every time I consider retiring this blog, something comes along, usually from the right side, to reset my outrage meter.

We went out for breakfast Sunday morning. At an adjacent table, a lady was playing with a fidget spinner. I learned one thing.

Fidget spinners and fidget spinnerers (?) give me the willies.

The cat is on a liquid diet until a vet’s appointment tomorrow morning. She is not happy, so she is trying to affection me into giving her some food. Heaven forbid she lose an ounce, but, really, now, cats aren’t supposed to have what she has–cleavage.

I just hope she doesn’t resort to violence before we get her into her carrier. After all, she’s packing knives.

(Yeah, I know. Just what the internet needs. Another cat picture.)

Addendum:

Diagnosis: Inflammatory bowel syndrome. because the size of the bowel walls are in excess of three cm.

Rx: Change of diet to prescription diet.

Comment: Trust me, you do not want a cat, or anything or anyone else, with inflammatory bowel syndrome. It is not pretty.