Family Night
Tonight was a family night. My mother’s birthday was on Wednesday so we had the requisite party tonight.
My sister-in-law has Fifth’s disease, so she didn’t come. I kind of liked it that way. It was nice just to have my brothers, Keith and Matilda around. Sort of just "my" family.
Not that there’s anything exciting happening in any of our lives. My brother Rod has been travelling quite a bit, so his life is the most interesting. He was in D.C. last week and had lots of interaction with Senators and Congressmen. His stories about that are always very interesting.
Matilda was in her usual chatty mood. She has decided that we should have a "Daughter’s Day" seeing there is already a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day. It is my responsibility to e-mail the media and let them know that there needs to be a day set aside for Daughter’s day. If that is successful we will then try to promote a "Son’s Day".
She has the whole thing figured out. Of course, more importantly there is the fact that her birthday is in a month, and that must be dealt with first. She has already chosen her meal…. McDonald’s.
No surprise there.
She was also into metaphysical discussions. Things like where is heaven? Will she go to hell? (She’s afraid of that one.) She also wanted to know about my mother’s brothers who have passed away.
My brothers and I were very close to both of them, so we have lots of stories to tell about them. Matilda loves family stories. She knows them all by heart, but she makes us tell the same things over and over. It can get to be tedious, but she truly loves these stories.
She’s also back on her leprechaun kick. She is afraid of the "sharp leprechauns". I guess they have claw-like hands. She must have seen them in a movie, but I’m not sure what one. Now, St. Patrick’s Day is a big day at our house. We are half-Irish and my grandmother’s birthday was on St. Patrick’s Day, so we always had great parties. We have to cure her of this fear.
When Keith was little I would tie balloons to their front door and leave a card from a leprechaun. He was pretty smart and figured out that it was me who was the leprechaun, but it was fun. I’d like to be able to do that again.
We mentioned that to Matilda tonight, and she thought maybe she’d leave a note and tell the leprechaun not to come into the house, but that it would be all right to leave something on the car.
I’ll have to gauge the situation once the holiday approaches.
Now that my return to the chorus is imminent, I’m dreading it.
I have a pit in my stomach thinking about it. But I have to go back and find out if I want to be a part of it again.
It’s like riding a horse. Time to get back on.
It’s been so long since I’ve sung that my voice is rusty. I’ll probably sound like a frog.
Listening to: Broadway Love Songs
Reading: Call it Destiny Jayne Ann Krentz
Weather: 50, rainy
Trivia: How did "qwerty" keyboards become standard?
Almost every alphabetic keyboard in the world has the letters in an arrangement called "qwerty," after the first six letters in the top row. There are several popular myths about the origin of today's standard keyboard arrangement. Some say it was deliberately designed to slow down typists. What is the truth? When inventor C. L. Sholes built his first typewriters in 1868, he arranged the keys in alphabetical order. But the clumsy mechanical linkages inside the machine could tangle if certain pairs of keys were struck quickly. The "qwerty" arrangement fixed the tangling problem by separating the internal links for frequently paired letters, making the machines more reliable. After a historic typing contest (see today's Person Of The Day, linked below), "qwerty" became the standard way to arrange the keys.
Cool word: postulate [v. POS-chu-layt / n. POS-chu-lit]
To postulate is to assume (for the sake of argument) the truth of
some statement or idea, or it can be to make a demand or claim. A
postulate is a presumed fact, something that is given as true without
proof, or it can be a requirement or prerequisite for something.
Example: "'Let us postulate,' began Holmes, 'that the thief entered through the air duct.'" The original use of this word in English was the verb form, which came from the Latin postulare (demand; request). Roman logicians used the word to name any statement in a proof that was so basic and obvious that it "demanded" to be taken as true. A similar word is axiom, an unproven statement that is always taken as true. The noun form of the word evolved in the 1600s. A related word is postulant [n. POS-chu-lint] (one who submits a request or application; one who applies for a religious office).
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Horoscope
ARIES
Mars enters your sign for the next six weeks and you will be feeling fit and ready for action, a new phase is about to begin where previous obstacles to you making more of yourself no longer exist, or at least they seem surmountable and smaller as you draw yourself up to your full height. The time for contemplation has passed, it is action stations now. Try out some of the schemes you have been tossing around in your head.