lessons from contractors - one sentence

"You will pay twice as much for any fixture different than the one I [haven't yet] spec'd- because that's an upgrade - and you will receive half as much as credit for the value of the unspecified item that was allegedly specified as the actual value you could ever hope to purchase it for."

Resistance is futile.

sigh.

random blatherings

The stuff that has been on my mind hardly bears notice. It is not particularly interesting; certainly not compelling; practically boring.

But it's exhausting to me, the one carrying it all around.

Boxes to be packed; number, size, and location of towel racks to determine (and I found a great sale of bathroom fixtures of this sort at Pottery Barn - if you can imagine - and did you know that toilet paper holders ROUTINELY go for $30 and $40 and up?!!); the dog to pee, poop, walk, brush, feed & water; food shopping and prep; colour, type and price of tile in the new bath (ok - $10 a square foot, but we have HOW MANY square feet?!!!); family and friends to try and keep some point of contact with. . . . . laundry; graduation plans; start work in 3 weeks; call the post office before 10 a.m. so you can speak to the mail "delivery person" and negotiate where the mail box will go; arrange for the rental house chimney to be cleaned even though we've never used it; call the builder: "When will you show me carpet samples? I will need more than 10 minutes to decide what I want. No - we've been through this before. You show me what's "in your price" - then I'll decide if I need to go pick something else. . . ."

I'm tired again. . . . time for a nap. . . .

Even Luther is sleeping. Might be a good time to be able to catch a shower.

another day - on which my father turns 65

no, he doesn't read this blog, not that I know of, anyway. Neither he, nor my biological father, who is older than him.

It was a strange shift from moving past feeling my family to be fractured to seeing my family as multiplied. I don't recommend the process, but I appreciated the feeling of blessing I ended up in.

For today, I plan a slow one. I've been beat up the last several days - emotionally and, by the dog, physically - and it's going to storm out, I think, so I will stay inside [as soon as the housekeepers leave] and do some ironing. And if the dog won't leave me alone, I will crate his ass. You can tell he's already been at me by my use of "language". I have at least three new bruises cooking and one tooth gash. . . . No, he's not vicious - he's just huge and awkward and a whole lot stronger than he knows. He gets 'outside himself' and can't settle himself down and just goes dashing, just as fast and furious as he can

God help anything in his path.

Generally, me.

sigh.

Meanwhile, the house is progressing and we're still on track for a mid August move. They've painted inside (a review of every shade of white in the world led to the choice of Moonrise. . . .) and they're applying the stucco outside. The colour decision there was between the "safe" (but boring) beige, or a yellow that can only be called apricot. Which might end up looking garish-carnival.

The really scarey bit is that you have to apply the colour a whole lot deeper and darker than what you hope to end up with, in order to get the colour you hope for. . . . So - ideally - this colour will dry back a bit, and leave us with a warm tuscan yellow.

Truth told? I don't mind this colour even as it is! Which is rather amazing. I've never been much for yellow. But it really will mellow back.

Well, Luther has settled down a bit, and we should be ready to head inside so the housekeepers can reform the mess we manage to make in just minutes here, outside. Shredded cardboard, bark off branches, water puddles from his water bowl, and plant detritus - not to mention the proliferation of toys.

I swore I'd never be like that with either children or pets: tolerating piles of toys and other junk. It just goes to show how little we (I, anyway!) are in control. The king remarked wistfully this morning that he wanted his life back. . . .

So do I.

music clearly necessary

The problem will be deciding on just what music would do the trick.

sigh.

Yesterday doesn't bear commenting on. You can't imagine the day. One thing after another. And then yet one more. Each time I thought we might be done and ready for "happy" hour. No happy arrived.

No music comes to mind. Not really. I was hoping for some kind of rock pick-up. Ah well, the little ditty from Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" might be cheering. I think I've posted this before.

work like an ant - reprise

I've written about this before: work like an ant.

One thing at a time, one little bit at a time, over and over again, over time, and it's amazing what you can accomplish.

I keep forgetting that, and trying to do everything all at once. I want to write the 'perfect' article, the perfect song, book, poem. . . . I want to knit the sweater at one go, in one sitting. I want the house all organized, right now, and I won't even bother starting because I know I can't get it done before the king comes home at 3 or 4 and chances are things are gong to look a whole lot worse before they start looking better.

I even put off washing clothes, because I know there are 3 sweaters to handwash, let's say, and I might only have time - really - to get one done.

The amazing thing? All this 'putting it off' doesn't help me focus on getting just one thing done, it somehow enables me to find myself - 4 hours later - with nothing done. Just a whole lot of stress over what still needs to be done, and guilty annoyance that I have somehow been tricked into wasting a whole lot of time doing God-knows nothing of much import.

So. Today: one sweater is handwashed and drying on top of the dryer, into which one load of laundry has been deposited. Two handbags have been emptied and put back into the handbag rotation pile next to the sweaters. One magazine I haven't read for almost a month has been filed in the garbage can. And this posting will be filed, sans picture, with no further ado. I have several scarves to put away, and then I have to walk up to the law library, so that I can get a complaint drafted and a release of lien form. I've been carrying those to-do items till they've practically poisoned my outlook.

Then, for some fun! I've also been putting off gardening excursions. Here's the decision to be made for today: green enamel pots, or blue?

A prophet's work is never done.

malaise, uninterrupted

Now is the time of year when I find that money questions seriously compete with a joy to the world state of mind.

In no time flat, a "token" gift can add 50 bucks to my cash outlay. [so you do the math for, say, ten token gifts!] Not to mention the question of the NON-tokens, for which I struggle to overcome a current cultural equation indicating a direct correlation between degree of affection/love and amount of cash outlay.

In other words: if I don't spend a bundle, I must not care very much.

Add to this a general drowning in things - stacks of articles, books I can't put away, resurrected crafts I'm starting to dig out again, Christmas cards waiting for addresses and personalized notes [damn - I don't think I have time to write up one of those 'what-we've-been-up-to-all-year' one-pagers, can I really just write Wishing you the best for the upcoming year! and be done with it? And hey! They haven't contacted me, either, so why is it always my fault for not having been in touch, I'd like to know?! Simmer down there now. . . . sigh]

You get the picture.

On top of that, I finally got the kitchen guy to give me an actual number for the kitchen design he's been working on, off and on for a year, for the house being built. Can you say "way over budget"? Well, I can. It's way over budget. And when I pointed that out, he got - well - a bit snitty with me. No more Mr. Nice Guy - now I get 'business-like' emails and the proposal is in contract form rather than proposal form. Sort of a 'sign or else' format. . . .

Oh - and the countertop is suddenly - mysteriously - no longer included.

sigh.

Emancipated son #1 continues his financial drama and has asked that I review a contract for his new employment elsewhere. As expected, it was draconian and incomplete and succeeded in pissing me off. I hate bad contracts. It's almost easier just to start from scratch. Anyway, the final indignity was to be told (having asked a bunch of questions) that I was overthinking the matter, and that this is just a simple arrangement, all that was needed was to make sure the legal 'mumbo-jumbo' was in order.

Right.

Funny how people view the law. It's 'mumbo-jumbo' at the start, when good will and best intentions still prevail. But when the will and the intentions have gone south - to hell in a handbasket - then suddenly the 'mumbo-jumbo' becomes important. The lawyers are still blamed - don't get me wrong - but it's because the parties didn't want to deal with what the 'mumbo-jumbo formality' was actually saying, to the extent that it does not mirror the "simple arrangement" the parties like to think they actually had. . . . . What's really going on, is that the parties have not thought through the details of their "simple arrangement", and decided what will happen if things do go wrong. . . . [which inevitably, they do. Sooner, or later].

Pessimism is an occupational hazard to practicing law.

Anyway - and a partridge in a pear tree to you, too!

another word of advice. . .

My mother was on a cruise not too long ago while I was in the throes of final dissertation madness. [No, I didn't resent it. . . . not much. Ok, maybe a little. . . .]

Anyway, on that cruise, she happened to meet an Oxford don - as she insisted on calling him - a lovely, dapper man from Oxford, who sent me this advice about finishing my dissertation:

It's not as hard as you think.

I can't tell you the comfort I derived from those words.

I don't know this man, but I salute him. And I give fair warning: If I ever meet you, I will kiss you!

now what?!

I am not good with numbers and I resent having to move into number mode.

If you force me to think like that, I will make you pay for it. So think twice!

Our architect and our engineers are forcing me to start calculating. . . . The problem? Architect's dimension numbers don't "close" for purposes of staking the house out.

Back to architect. Much dithering, whining and complaining, and a new drawing was presented with new numbers.

Engineer: "Those don't work, either."

Me: "What am I supposed to do?"

Engineer: "I'll review them closely, try and meet with architect to resolve, otherwise, I will make whatever modifications are necessary, working with your builder."

OK then. New plans are produced with new numbers. As might be expected, I ignore the numbers. The king, however, does not.

"The engineer has added a foot at the rear of the house, but only some 6 inches at the front."

[do NOT rely on my numbers. . . . these are all approximations - just as the above is not a picture of the actual house - trapezoidal or not - but the picture of the approximate tower I'd like to go hole up in. And - now that I think of it - to the left is the picture of the actual tower that started the whole process of building our own house. Just because I have it, and just to be accurate, and also because there are no numbers involved in showing it to you.]

Me: "Yeah?"

The king: "Are we getting a trapezoidal house? Or is this the fix necessary so that it is NOT trapezoidal?"

Me: "Ah. . . . hmmm. I don't know?"

In the meantime, it's raining cats and dogs (can you say "mud"?) and a cold front is coming in (can you say "Not a good time to either dig or pour foundations"?).

So we're back to waiting.

I really don't understand this. It just seems that whatever could go wrong, has gone wrong. And yet we don't think that we're doing the wrong thing by persevering in trying to build this house.

But I don't get it.

Somehow, more words don't seem to help.

There's a lesson for me here, somewhere. But I just want to pick up the phone and throw some more words at it. Or send them via email or messenger. Must. Do. Something. (where "Wait" doesn't seem to count as anything. . . .)

patience and genius

Michelangelo is reported to have said: Genius is eternal patience.

The story of his sculpture of David as a young lad is remarkable. It was done using a piece of marble that had been discarded by another sculptor as (as I recall) flawed. It had already been cut into, though, and thus compromised. It's been years now since I've read the story, but I recollect that the huge piece of marble lay outside, abandoned to the elements, for years, before Michelangelo was finally allowed to take charge of it. Where others saw ruin and failure after a brief - and now-ended - beginning, Michelangelo didn't give up. I understand that it was the very flaw in the stone that prompted part of the positioning of Michelangelo's David, and which is part of the "genius" of it.

Genius is eternal patience.

Sounds like another glimpse of the lesson of the ants.

. . . . and Churchill's "Never give up."

. . . . and this morning's reading in Matthew about asking, seeking and knocking - and continuing to ask, seek and knock, because those who ask get answers; those who seek, find; those who knock, have the door opened to them.

The difficulty is the bit in between. The lag-time between asking and getting, seeking and finding, knock-knocking and the 'Who's there?' opening. But that's the whole point, isn't it? If you won't endure the lag-time, you won't get to the genius bit.

I'm lagging a bit in the lag-time part.

But soldiering on, best as I can. Trusting.

[sigh. That's the life of faith, now, isn't it? OK, then. I feel better.]

3 - three - drei - tres - trois - help

three days left.

the headache is FINALLY gone - for now.

I have: intro & conclusion to write, chapter 4 re-write to finish, chapter 5 re-write, title selection, and then fun and games with pagination, table of contents, and printing.

Then personal hand-off to friend leaving for Dublin on Friday - including taking him to airport.

Then: collapse.

I predict: serious fall in standards ensuing almost immediately.

Second: loss of extra four pounds plus another 4 as my throat closed yesterday.

Finally: serious sleep deprivation (as if I could sleep!), but I just hope that my mind stays with me. More important than the mind is my source. . . . Father please don't leave me. You got me into this! I know you will sustain me. The part of the 'acknowledgements' that made me cry yesterday was when I realized I had not acknowledged God. . . . and the words of Jude came to mind, which is how I was able to incorporate thanks to God in a way that I hoped would not make the academics nervous:

To Him who is able to keep me from falling and to present me before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Although it undoubtedly will still make them nervous, in spite of the fact that this is theology. . . .and - hey! - Scripture. That shouldn't be too scary, eh?

Facing the intro/conclusion again today. Oh help.

minus 8

and again, I don't really want to talk about set-backs or hell-week or month, but. . . .

I'm not well.

It makes a big difference.

So I don't really want to talk about being 'behind the 8-ball', but. . . . Not much got done yesterday from the perspective of getting re-writes done, although I did find all sorts of NEW MATERIAL, which I'm imagining I will have to stop considering, at some point.

In bed by midnight last night; rough night; but I got to spend the morning with the king, who pampered me a bit, and reminded me that I would be better after a while, so not to worry. "Feeling puny" - he calls it. That's it, precisely. Feeling puny. (and now that word just looks wrong. I've looked at it too long.)

Well, the minutiae of my last few days of dissertation ditherings: we had a home-made pot pie last night, which did wonders for my sense of well-being! There wasn't really enough of the mushroom, steak, potato, veg soup for another meal, and we still had some roast chicken left over from having company over this weekend and some Pepperidge Farm frozen puff pastry dough in the freezer. . . . So I cut up the chicken, rolled out the dough and lined a casserole with it, put in chicken, ladled in the now-very-thick soup/stew, grated chipotle cheddar on top, and then topped the casserole with the other piece of the pastry dough & crimped the edges and pricked the top of the pie. Into a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes and it was gorgeous! And yummy. . . . With a lovely Beaujolais.

The other half is in our future for this evening.

The building permit is probably going to issue today. The king has really been having to go around and around to get this done, and it's finally almost there. . . . In which case next up is actually signing a contract with the builder and they have to clear part of the forest. I'm going to hate that part of this. . . . I know it's necessary, but I don't have to like it.

Well, I don't seem to have anything to say here today, so I might as well go say nothing in front of the chapter 1 re-write screen. . . . At least I'll feel like I'm trying to work.

I haven't heard back from Magda on the last chapter and the proposed title. Undoubtedly it's a good thing. I still have plenty to do, and it usually takes me a day or two to recover from her 'ministrations'. . . . Although if I were going to be shot down, today would be the day to do it. I don't feel well anyway, might as well get both things behind me at the same time! I really feel like getting back under the covers and not coming out. All. Day. Long.

I've said it before - and I know it's true (however much it doesn't feel like it just now): This, too, shall pass.

minus 13. . . . still dark

ok. . . so it's going to be a tough one. Feels like I'm in labour - although I've never been in labour.

It feels horrible.

Reminds me of something my father used to say:

That's the only good thing about hitting yourself in the head with a hammer.

and to the inevitable question: "What is?" he'd say:

It feels so good when you stop.

What a strange thing to say, don't you think? Wonder where he got it?

I do know the goodness of 'pain stopped', though. sigh

When I found this picture I decided to check what the book of James might have for me. There is no James 13, so I looked up James 1:3 and found (coming from verse 12 before):

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

Great. Perseverence.

Right. That's what I need.

More of that.

Oh help. . . .

day 2

This time will fly by, I know it. Before I know it, I'll be saying "There are only three days left. . . ."

sigh.

Yesterday, it occurred to me that the scholar's collar will be finished well before the end of hell month if I don't ration the amount of knitting I am allowed to do each day. I measured everything up and came up with only a half inch allowed a day! (it's a short scarf. . . .) Well, I blasted that limit yesterday. By another 5 or 6 inches. I did however come up with the rather sensible notion of harvesting all the articles I have stacked up and filed, accumlated over 5 years of postgraduate seminars and other handouts. If I find just one a day, that's 30 more secondary sources I didn't have. (that I do have, but just haven't quoted or 'applied' to the work I've been doing.

The king always marvels at my ability to make something good out of 'found' stuff. Why not here?

I would prefer to work with the primary texts, but if they want also a bit of a hash on what others are saying. . . . so be it.

Feeling a bit low today. I worked myself into a proper gloom last night, considering all the gritty details necessary before this thing can be put to bed. Is it physically possible? Then there's the simple fact that I don't see an answer to this problem of how law and ethics should relate. I comfort myself with the recognition that no one else has found a 'solution', either, over centuries of ponderings. But the centuries of pondering has left quite a layer of guano that has to be scraped away and it seems I can't say anything without finding myself neck-deep in the stuff.

Hell, I can't even talk about 'foundations' without being bombarded by the 'foundationalist/anti-foundationalist' dispute! And if you want to talk about 'rational', do you have to distinguish between Kant's reason and the Enlightenment's idea of it? Oh God - help me! (and I am speaking literally, here.)

The days continue fine. The door is open to the screened porch and I begin to hear more crickets instead of locusts. I am always surprised to realize that the transition has taken place, outside of my awareness.

I have resolved the 'which came first' puzzle in the question of Maman's birthday vs. anniversary: "a" comes before "b" - so anniversary is first. Card (ok - letter, I didn't go shop for a card) duly sent yesterday. My brother reminded me "you have to eat", so we're going out to dinner tomorrow night. Should be fun, actually. We're going to a favorite German restaurant. With any luck, the weather will continue fine and we can eat outside! Killer schnitzel. Spaetzle. Rot kraut. Weiss bier! yum.

And now: back to my regularly scheduled program.

note to self

re-read "unkindness of", supra, especially the part that says: "I'm trying going to take all of Magda's comments as kindnesses, no matter what it sounds like."

Repeat as necessary.

. . . and again.

Read it again. . . .

work like an ant

My brother gave me a book by some psychotherapist-type, who writes about successful [quote-unquote] living. Actually, this guy has helped me in the past. He helped me see that I had been working with no boundaries, that it is OK to say "No" and that I am not responsible for how another person feels.

I forget these lessons on a regular basis. Luckily, however, the king has splendid boundaries, and regularly models for me what "normal" people are supposed to act like. You know: ask a question that doesn't presuppose a positive response, and live unswayed by emotional blackmail attempts. I don't think he'd recognize a blackmail attempt if it hit him over the head, to tell you the truth. He'd just walk out of the trap as if it wasn't there.

And it isn't there, for him!

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to get back to MoFo, the hummingbird, who flew the coop a couple weeks ago when - without notice - all hummingbirds suddenly disappeared. It's still hot as summer here, but no more hummingbirds. (My dad says that its not the temperature that controls, it's the big hummingbird-clock-in-the-sky).

So - there I was with a fresh batch of hummer nectar and no more hummers. Bummer!

We still kept an eye out, but 2 or 3 weeks have gone by with no appreciable dip in the nectar level. And no sign of MoFo on the overhead wire. Maybe Dad was right.

This weekend, however, there seemed to be a change.

"Wasn't the feeder nearly full?"

"Yeah! Look at that - it's down nearly an inch. . . ."

Over the weekend, it went down steadily. Now there's only an inch or so of nectar left. What in the world?! There's been no sign of hummingbirds. There's been the occasional wasp, granted, but not anything that would account for that kind of displacement. It must be leaking, I thought. I finally looked at it closely this morning. I didn't see anything. No leaking. OK - an ant at one of the portals. Wait a minute - two ants. No, three. One's leaving. Here comes another. OK. . . .

Focusing on the black wrought iron stand that suspends the feeder in the garden, I finally made out a line of ants. Black on black, you know, hard to see. Well now, two lines: one coming and one going. The perfect illustration for the lesson psycho-doctor advocates for successful living:

Work like an ant.

A little at a time. One swallow at a time. And they have managed the equivalent of draining a small lake. And storing up a whole lot of food for the winter! Over the weekend.

I didn't have the heart to interrupt them. But if they make a move towards my kitchen, they're history. And meanwhile, I gotta go make like an ant. Add another word.

the other song that came to mind

and now a word from your sponsor

Stay tuned for further hair-raising, hair-pulling episodes as Prophet pulls through the final stages of finishing the dissertation.

Prophet is working on the overview this weekend, so wings are back on and she's soaring overhead, looking down. (Remember the scene from The Crystal Cave where a young Merlin learns about maps? Think that.) No boundaries, just the view of the roads already established, natural barriers, silly routings and dead-ends.

Once the journey has been charted - start here; end there - we'll follow her as she translates it to paper. Next week, we'll see how that mapquest plays in Peoria - OK, not Peoria, but overseas in Europe, which is even more exciting - and we'll see how she fares at the hands of Magda.

THEN - oh you're going to love this! - we'll start the countdown.

31 DAYS OF HELL. Take the amount of work still to be done, divide it by 31, and you can see the daily dose.

Tune in. Do.

. . . .here's wishing I could tune OUT. But hey! here, it really IS "all about me." That's the hell of it. And now, just for fun, a song from Chess that somehow came to mind from the earlier talk about maps and borders. . . . "my land's only borders lie around my heart." (aren't you glad I learned how to post videos? grin. . . .)

another all-nighter

I'm getting too old for this.

There's something rather nice about the focused state I finally move into after the yawns have broken off my usual day face. The yawns finally stop and there's a quiet that is really quite lovely.

That was me, night before last, after the foray into further legal posturings and attempts of the law to pass for morality and guide to good living. [sorry - you'd have to be there]. It's what drives me crazy about laws to make people water lawns, that force people out of homes, to prevent people from driving while tired, and that try to make people act nice to people that they don't like, or aren't like them, or a different colour than them - or for whatever reason - and 'play nicely' with one another.

All good things, maybe, but not something you can - or should - try to enforce at law. So, whenever you say There oughta be a law! try to imagine a police officer forcing you to do it. Or your 70 year-old grandmother. Or your ne'er-do-well buddy, Zak.

And putting them in prison if they get it wrong.

If that doesn't work, imagine the tax level it will take to hire more bureaucrats to make our lives yet more miserable by policing our now-watered grass for doggie-do, for example, and monitoring the levels of acceptable processed bovine-do (otherwise known as Scott's Grass-B-Green). Or hiring other people to do it for us.

That's the choice we have, I guess: the golden rule, or the economic cost-benefit analysis.

picture, above, is from Elizabeth Perry's site, Woolgathering. She's just about to celebrate her 1000th consecutive day of drawing and posting! Wow. . . .

ashes to ashes. . . .

How I felt yesterday. The title, anyway. Ashes to Ashes. But I love the melody piping through this song. . . . It actually gives me a bit of a 'so what!?!' feeling. (if you haven't already - click 'play' above and then continue reading)

So. Yesterday. Started ok. Ended crap. More comments. Worse than the first. More reading ordered. More languages. More secondary sources. More "You can't say ________ without first ____________ [insert impossibly-high-hurdle].

It reminds me of James Michener, who seems incapable of starting stories except at the very beginning - giving entirely new meaning to the phrase "First, the earth cooled." Hawaii actually starts with stories of lava flow.

Michener pulls it off - barely - and not with everyone.

I'm not even interested in lava, or with 'first principles' or anything like that. We have words in our lexicon - let's use 'em. I don't feel the need - first - to reinvent language or investigate the basis upon which I talk about principles, values or even God. Unless, of course, it becomes apparent that we are not talking about the same thing!

And it's pretty *&^%$@@#! apparent me and. . . . let's call her Magda . . . . apparent me and Magda are NOT talking about the same thing!

sigh.

Well - the good news is that I got comments for the next chapter today, and they are - good. . . . - mostly! Or at least she says the chapter is good. . . . I haven't read the comments yet. I think I'll leave that till later. I don't need any further evidence of failures to understand. . . .

This week is apparently going to be all about wrenching feelings of inadequacy and incompetence. Not fun. Not for me. Not for anybody, I'm sure. But it is what it is. . . .

I cautiously approach the elephant in the room: Maybe I can't do this.

But I'll never know if I don't try, eh? I mean: Really Try. So. On I go.

Tuesday

. . . . and it's another new day, thank God.

I was pretty dejected all day yesterday, and accomplished nothing. I didn't even post wierd pictures or engage in diversionary ramblings! Actually, I pretty much shut down.

The king read the comments and told me there were 14 - or was it 16? - "goods". There's the very distinct possibility that I'm over-reacting. (do ya think?!) Anyway, today's a new day and I'm about to hit it, and finish the last chapter and send it on.

Meanwhile, this week is shaping up to be a tough one. I should be getting marked-up chapters by email each day. My tutor is of the German persuasion, so small talk and encouragement is not something she keeps on her usual palette of relationship tools. The other thing I realized yesterday is that her tense of choice appears to be something resembling the 'unreal conditional,' which I finally recognized tends to communicate "futility" to me. (which might be why I feel so bad so often right after I've talked to her. . . .) I must assume that it communicates something different to her, however, as she is continuing to work on this project and seems to expect that I will, as well.

It must be different in the German.

Anyway - still trying to figure out how to do things like put in YouTube clips - let's try this one more time. It being a Tuesday and all, how about a little Moody Blues, Tuesday Afternoon?



just the thing. . . .