May 12, 2005

• From the Library–

  
  

  It’s my Thursday to drive the rehab van, and I’ve stopped in Willow on my way to Wasilla.  If all went well for rosabelle and her roomie, our new computer is in the mail.  Much of the message she left me here was news to me today because I hadn’t been to town since I did my last post here and Greyfox never relays a complete message.  I can see from the little posts he leaves here in my absence that he often omits or distorts the outgoing messages, too.  Ah, well… when we get the new computer he can go back to posting on his own site and I’ll take care of mine.

  
  

  I hope rosabelle wasn’t too shocked by the cost of sending it “cheap” by U.S. surface mail.  From CA to AK by Parcel Post is almost as costly as, and in some cases costlier than Priority Mail because of the parcel post zones.  We’re in the Twilight Zone as far as the Post Office is concerned.  Transit time varies, too, because all surface mail (Parcel Post, bulk mail, etc.) travels by barge.  Containers wait at the dock in Seattle until they accumulate a barge full, and then it gets hauled up here.  What I’m trying to say here is that we don’t know when we’ll have the computer.  I’ll be shopping for a new monitor today.

  
  

  Just to clarify the issue for a few people who seemed confused, it’s a hardware problem, not software.  Over the past couple of years four hard drives have failed, and all three of the replacements for the original have failed within warranty.  I suppose we’re getting used to doing without.  It’s not hurting as bad doing without the computer as it did in January and February, the last time our hard drive puked.  I’ve even managed to stay off the PS2.  I may also be getting the detective fiction out of my system.  I’m currently reading Falls the Shadow, a Mediaeval historical novel by Sharon Kay Penman, the middle book in a trilogy about English, Welsh and French wars and royal intrigues.  It’s okay, readable, but not even close to the quality of Jack Whyte’s work, for example.  Before that, I read Two O’Clock, Eastern Wartime, a book by John Dunning about radio at the start of WWII. He is one of my favorite authors.  The last time I was at the library, I checked out his latest Cliff Janeway mystery, The Bookman’s Promise.  It’s definitely worth reading.  I love the premise of a cop-turned-bookseller who continues to solve crimes. 

  
  

  The other book I got on that visit to the library was Robert A. Heinlein’s For Us, the Living.  It was his first novel, unpublished until after his death.  The introduction by Spider Robinson describes it as a series of lectures rather than a novel, and I agree.  I don’t think many readers unfamiliar with Heinlein’s work would appreciate it.  Greyfox said he started it and lost interest.  Doug and I both loved it, but we’re Heinlein fans.  The book introduces his future history, many of the socio-economic concepts that appeared in later stories, and at least one character: Nehemiah Scudder, the asshole whose religious repression led to the revolution that finally got the Church out of U.S. politics.  As I read this book, I realized how influential Heinlein’s work from the forties through the eighties had been on my philosophy.  I was also led to reflect on not only how prophetic much of his work was but just how totally OFF a lot of his “prophecies” were.  Writing in 1938, he saw the U.S. staying out of Europe’s war and breaking off our trade relations with them.  He accurately predicted that Hitler would die of a self-inflicted gunshot, but missed when he predicted that Mussolini would come out better.

  
  

  If I’d had the computer working over the last couple of weeks you would have seen a lot of pictures of spring coming to our neighborhood.  There are still a few piles of dirty snow in shady places, but elsewhere the mud has hardened and trees are showing some leaves.  The muskeg is no longer flooded over the edge of the road, but is still full and frogs are still singing for their mates out there.  There are GAZILLIONS of mosquito larvae visible around the edges of the flooded part.  Doug and I spent a pleasant sunny interval yesterday watching submersible beetles preying on mosquito larvae while tiny water striders made chevron-shape wakes on the surface and a pair of violet-green swallows swooped to catch something from the water.  In recent days I have heard and seen loons, trumpeter swans and whooping cranes.  A pair of swans flew by just as I was coming out of the house this morning, and shortly before that I had heard but not seen an eagle.

  
  

  I know that there have been a thousand thoughts cross my mind that I would have blogged about if I could have.  I have made a few notes of things I want to explore once I get the computer back, as well as some memoir topics that came to mind.  For now, I’m going to browse here for some books to take home, and then get on the road and head on down the valley before I starve.  Breakfast was scant and hours ago.

  
  

  

  • 3:39 pm
  • 9 Comments