I really do read things other than the NYDailyNews.

Anyway-- have a link.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/navy-dolphins-find-rare-torpedo-article-1.1349515

It looks very clean,

Dolphin looks quite pleased too.

In other animal news. Hazel got her stitches out today. I ended up taking her in, rather than doing it myself. I wanted the doctor to look at her incision.

All is well, and she acted very polite at the vet. We walked back from Park Slope afterward. It is warm, and there were lots of other dogs to meet, and people jogging, and babies in strollers. She used very good manners, but after about 15  blocks she said that she was done. She sat down on the sidewalk, and that was it. Took a while to get her going again.

She is wiped out now. So am I, actually.

My Spanish lessons have not been very exciting lately. But I finished adverbs last night, which is great because I hated that section. Only two good sentences this time.

'The duck does not swim in February' (Well what does he do then? Maybe that is when he is reading everyone's mail.)

And

'She is relatively pretty' (I cannot think of any occasion at all to use this phrase, can you?)


I have been reading The Great War and Modern Memory. Had it on my Kindle for ages, and now have finally gotten to it. I have been going  slowly. I am usually a very fast reader, but this book needs time to soak.  And I have spent some time weeping too. So, you, know, it takes longer. Great book. And it is the kind that sends you scampering off to look things up, or wander into other books. I like the ones that do that. There are a few photos. They do not show up well on the Kindle. But if you want to see pictures of WWI there is always the internet. There are surprisingly few photos anyway. They were well censored.

Speaking of things that lead to other things-- I found an old C-span program from 05, where a very nice and funny author discusses his book on Francis Walsingham. This was cool to stumble over. If anyone else wants to watch it, let me know.

On a less literary note: Daughter tonight walked by me carrying a bath-towel. When I asked where she was going she muttered "Shower," in that tone that teenage girls use to indicate that you ask really oblivious  questions. All well and good. But she had a piece of pizza in her hand. Husband  asked why. "I am going to eat it while I get undressed, and fix the water,"  she said. (Obviously!)

I suppose all families seem odd. Not all happy ones are the same, that is for sure.  Tonight I was making supper and found myself asking, with some irritation, "Who took my cooking hammer?" Husband had washed it with the dishes, and put it away with tools. It is a perfectly ordinary claw hammer. I suppose it makes sense. I did have a nice rubber mallet once, but nobody seems to know where that went.

Bright and early today doing grocery shopping. All done now, and awaiting delivery. I would rather write than clean the refrig. (Wouldn't you?) I am working on the Marlowe-- but this is a little brain side-trip...


Years ago I read about a little girl who named her doll Felony because the word sounded so beautiful it ought to be a name. I sometimes think of words that way too. Stripped of meaning, some words just sound/feel lovely to say and hear. I have asked before if all of you have any favorites, but maybe you will indulge me again.

I like theodolite, and uvula. They seem to me that they could be names.

What do you all think?

Yesterday i collected my Kyd and Marlowe stories, and put them in order. I am going to try to see if they need filling in, or (much more likely,) removal of parts, to make a better story. I think going back through at this point will help me with going ahead. I am still going ahead, the going back may be invisible to anyone outside my brain.

I still feel I am in the 'getting to know them' stage of things. The guys are revealing themselves slowly-- as are the other people in their lives. Writing them is fun. It is fun to allow myself to invent their world.

I added up my word counts, I have about 20,000 for Marlowe stuff. More than I thought.

That is actually a little scary, because it is so dwarfed by the Hornblower writings.

Thank you all for slogging through with me. I am so grateful for everyone who has taken the time to read, even if they never did comment. And, of course, the comments I have gotten have been so kind, so thoughtful,

Nobody has said  'Who are you, and what do you think you are doing, you imposter! Go away!'

Everybody has said 'Come over here, it is fun isn't it? We know what you mean.  Look over there-- isn't that cool?.'

How good you all are! I want to take you all home and feed you cheesecake! You all mean more to me than I can say.

So, onward. I am going to try and do some more of what I have been doing. And new things too. It is fun, isn't it?   Look over there!

Too bad--




http://xkcd.com/696/


(No strip golf for Wales either-- fair is fair.)

Today I made a cheesecake. It has bananas in it because I had some bananas that needed to go somewhere. But I made it all myself, with things I had. And it is as good as many I have bought. (Still not as good as Juniors, but that is a high bar.)

And the best part is, I did not need to look anything up. I just eyeballed and went. I had the ricotta, and egg yolks, and sugar and bananas, and I made a crust of matzoh meal and butter. And that was it.

It set up nice, and turned gold on top. It did not crack, but it holds its shape when you cut it. No oozing.

So-- I am happy.

No writing today, but hey, cheesecake!

Beautiful article in the NYT about the man who developed MMR vaccine.

Seeing everything through the window of the past, I wonder what a doctor like John Hornblower, or even the much maligned Dr Clive would have thought of a medicine to prevent-- nearly completely-- death by contagion in babies and kids.  Horatio lost his tiny son and daughter from smallpox. He and Maria grieved and tried to go on. As so many did.

Both Thomas Kyd and Christofer Marlowe lost siblings from unrecorded disease. We don't know what they had, but it was almost certainly something we can prevent now.

Sometimes I think that this old world is just as mean and wicked and hard as it ever was. We  fail, every day, to treat others as we should. We could all do so much better. We fail as a planet to pull in the direction of the common good.

But this is, I think, a bright spot. Less sick and dying babies has to be a bright spot.



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/health/maurice-hilleman-mmr-vaccines-forgotten-hero.html?ref=health