From Doug:
"And in other news: Looks like I may well be going to Hank's for a month. If nothing comes up between now and next Monday, I gather. I'm looking forwards to it, I suppose. I mean, working from 8 A.M. to 2 A.M. sounds rather daunting, but the worst I'm worried about is my level of fitness dropping quite a bit... Well, we'll see... We'll see..."
What, I go so kick Doug out too? I feel sorry for Mom already, with just Peter and Owen....
Larked at nine, after Diane got here. Planned to take the long way again, but it was an oven so we took the short way. It took almost as long as I'd expected the long way to take, too. Met a middle-aged couple in great shape jogging. Women, take care of your fitness level and your appearance will look after itself.....at least, that's what I think.
Carole came today. She's going to Missouri for someone's wedding tomorrow through Sunday, so she scheduled today before she left. I like talking to her. Did I ever tell the story from when I was reading Out of Africa? I'd been reading in the kitchen while she did the studio, so after she finished I was walking by carrying it. "Oh, that's a good book," she said. A very small incident, but it still amuses me.
Decided I'd spent enough time mucking about with equations and went on to square roots today. Considering my mental abilities today, this was probably easier anyway. When trying to think feels like moving through a swamp, it's much easier to go "oh, okay, radicand," than actually try to solve anything. Although I did a fair amount of reading when the math wouldn't work and I was trying to stay awake. Especially during the period when the Net went out.
At five I succumbed to the nap attack that'd been threatening most of the day, figuring since I'd have to wake up for dinner, I wouldn't get enough sleep to seriously interfere with my sleep cycle. I think in the end I got half an hour of uninterrupted sleep, and then I had to start coming to some form of consciousness every five minutes to throw a tennis ball. At least it meant I wasn't completely asleep when Grandma came in. I was adequately conscious to catch the television saying the Nova program tonight would be (in fancy font) "The Secrets--of Samurai Swords." Oh, hey, that looks interesting. So after dinner (salmon) I held Lark off and watched it. It was pretty interesting, really. On the one hand you have professors and scientists from various Western universities talking about atomic structures of steel, and on the other you have Japanese craftsmen explaining about the shrine in the forge. Cool. There were lots of fight scenes, too, interesting mainly for the costumes, and they had a kendo master and his daughter demonstrating this ritual--I'm not too clear on what it was, actually, but it involved the master's daughter shooting at him with a Japanese longbow, and the master had to cut the arrow before it hit him--and it could easily have killed him. He did, too. And there were no fail-safes or anything. They were kinda late in the program, though--it started with smelting the steel, in a clay furnace called a tatara, like the name of Sarasa's brother in The Legend of Basara. I wonder if Tamura-sensei had that in mind? After that was the swordsmith--I was amused to see that the apprentices do stuff like hammering. Very efficient. After him was the polisher, and then they started talking about collectors and museums. Oh well. There were movie clips, though, and did I mention the fight scenes? And the costumes? Mmmm.
At eight the program ended, and I couldn't hold Lark off any longer, so we left. It was just the first leg again, and very buggy it was. I had to let my hair down first thing. We met three lady joggers who may have been three generations of a family. The ages seemed about right. We made it home about nine, I think.
Fifteen nonstop pushups on hard; twenty nonstop situps.
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