:: The Wendy House ::

Normal service will resume in mid October

W.

There is a slightly different perspective on what constitutes a 2-way street in the UK. This is an examples where its perfectly clear that drivers will have to negotatie the direction of the street on a car-by-car basis…

When parking on these street’s many car-owners typically flip their wing-mirrors against their car to avoid loosing them through collisions when a car passes by.

The leafy lane leads to my parent’s home, where I’m currently convalescing…

Wendy Wecovering-Well

My laptop is empathizing with my health…   …after I pressed the power button this morning…  …first it ‘whirred’ reminiscent of an electric ’saw’…   ..then this is what it said to me in a small font, centre screen… 

operating system not found

Dad knowingly said ‘the bearings on your hard drive have ‘gone”

Doh.  Lost my bearings…

Wendy

I helped a bohemian writer pack to move into her recently purchased home.

My job was to pack the books. 

Some books were coated in dust so thick that you couldn’t read the text on their aptly named dust jacket.  Strands of cob-webs clung to the older classics and stretched like gum when the books were parted.

She has a LOT of interesting books.  It was extremely difficult to put them in boxes without reading title,  back-cover, and asking about them.  Tihs made packing slow progress and much pleasure….  …I managed 7 boxes in 2 hours…

W.

Film summary details: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274558/

This is an outstanding Oscar winning film,  the best film I’ve seen this year….  ..definitely rated in my top 10 films.  It was an accidental discovery on live TV!  It captured and drew me in, for a plethora of reasons including

• Distinctive female central roles executed brilliantly by Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Miranda Richardson.  Miranda Richardson is a personal favourtie because
  • I’ve been likened to her portrayal of ‘Queenie’ in Black Adder III.
  • Her outstanding portrayal of ‘Ruth Ellis’,  the last woman to be ‘executed’ in the UK in ‘dance with a stranger’
  • Her amazingly versataille portfolio.
• An excellent screen script by David Hare.  David is a personal favourite of mine.  I’ve had the honour of being cast in plays he’s written.
• The value of life is questioned.  A worthy topic of consideration.  It’s profoundly distressing.  This may seem like an odd reason to rate a film as excellent.  I value films that take the audience on journeys they may not have the freedom or courage to take outside of the film.  Films that provoke thought,  manipulate emotions, heighten self and other awareness.  This film is fairly unique in its subject matter for such a famous cast,  yet the subject matter is accessible and potentially very recognisable.  I have very non-mainstream views on the value of an individual’s life that easily align with the decisons made by some people within this film.
• Philip Glass’s musical score.  Michael Nyman has been my favourite modern composer since I saw ‘The Draughtman’s Contract’  1982 and in subsequent Peter Greenaway films.  Michael is more internationally famous for producing the sound track for ‘The Piano’ starring Holly Hunter,  Harvey Keitel and Sam Neil.  I normally find Philip Glass’s work pales by comparison.  My introduction to Philip glass was a live performance of the Opera ‘The fall of the house of usher’.  It was tedious.  By contrast,  in this film Philip manages to convey time and mood fabulously.  It turned my opinion of his abilities around. 
• Clever yet easy to follow postmodern structure.   Few films have beautifully mastered interrupting and interweaving multiple interrelated storylines.  Notable other successes are ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Memento’.   
• Its personal and relevant today.  These women were all profoundly beautiful.  I found myself wanting to stand up and defend them,  to celebrate their value, to break the pathway of their distress,  to rescue them.  But I couldn’t,  as the people around them couldn’t.  Fundamentally distressing.  This film caused pain.  I cried.  The outcomes felt inevitable and right for the characters.  Things haven’t changed that much.  The main themes of the film are evident today.  That pain exists.   It’s everybody’s responsibility to remove the pain.

Do watch this.

Don’t watch it alone,  make sure you are with someone who cares about you or can effectively share,  empathise or manage distress.  The film rating is too low,  this film is deeply emotionally disturbing,  it contains suicide and serious questioning of societal values. 

I made 2 mistakes.  Watching it alone and answering a phonecall 15mins before the film ended while crying silently and still deeply immersed.

I will be watching this film again.  I suspect I’ve missed many subtle nuances,  I want to use it to help be more aware and supportive in the lives I touch,  including my own.

W

<boring entry>

Initial set-up:

• old desktop replacement HP laptop runnng XP SP2 Professional (Tinkerbell).
• combined wireless base-station router (gateway?) connected to a DSL modem.

Problem space:

• Recently Tinkerbell started making disturbing ‘whirring’ noises intermittently. Scared the kitties. Spooked me. A ‘tap’ on the side stops it.. …but its a mystery…
• Tinkerbell could provide a useful resource on trip to the UK, homes with wireless networks and limited access to PC’s…

Requirements:

• Back-up digital music & photographs ‘outside’ the laptop.
• Storage accessible over wireless network (don’t want to plug it into my laptop).
• Easily add a photo-quality printer to the Network.
• Cheaper than replacing Tinkerbell.
• More storage than I currently need.
• No complex labeling and filing systems to manage (e.g. burning and maintaining a complex CD catalogue).
• Opportunities beyond my & the kitties current imagination…

The solution is not immediately clear to the the kitties and I.

Research:

• Searching online stores. Reading descriptions of Network thingy’s. Trying to work out what those descriptions meant and if they were good for the kitties and I.
• Verified research by asking specific questions of a store assistant (Fry’s).

Implementing the solution

• Purchase a network storage drive with printer-server (photograph attached).
• Follow instructions. Everything set-up ok… …then…
• changed the name of my remote storage folder…. ….things got too messy to describe here… …in time, i managed to ‘recover’.
• Searched XP help for ‘Back-up’. It wasn’t helpful. Later discovered it would have been helpful if I’d typed ‘backup’.
• 3hrs copying files from laptop to the remote storage - I havent got much ’stuff’ yet!

Now Tinkerbell can ‘pop its clogs’ any old time. I can save for a light-weight, pretty, kitty-fur-repellant, replacement laptop. A small object of desire rather than a whirring functional brick!

Meanwhile, the brick will come to the UK with me. That means you’ll get more ‘verbose’ blog entries than if I used my phone…. Hooray! After all, it is all about you.

<boring entry finished>

Promise:   a positive declaration intended to give confidence that one will do something or that something will happen (OED)

Over promising emotional impact =    gloom, disappointment

Examples from my social life normally come in the form of ‘I didn’t have the time’ (missed the train, unavoidable conflict, some dependency didn’t happen,  etc)

In process promises emotional impact =   mounting frustration, increasing disengagement

Examples from my social life revolve around negotiating (when to meet-up,  shared taste in a mutual purchase like concert tickets, vacation location etc)

Under promising emotional impact =   Joy, gratitude

Examples from my social life tend to be unexpected gifts of events (phone calls, surprise parties, a person’s presence, vacations, etc) and objects (letters, photographs, hand-made artwork, poetry, hard to find treasures, etc)

Reliable delivered promises emotional impact =   contentment,  admiration and loyalty

Examples from my social life are thankfully numerous. A place to stay, met at the airport, companionable evenings, my cats fed and pampered while I’m away.  I love these people as the unsung heros whose ability and commitment provides the foundation of happiness. 

I strive for reliable delivery with some intentional under promising to allow me to express my creativity and, more importantly, the pleasure of witnessing the joy.  Everyone I’m visiting in the UK consistently falls into the last 2 categories in thier relationship with me.  I count myself as extremely wealthy to be able to appreciate these people 

What do you tend to do?

Wendy Wondering-how-to-next-under-promise

We went to see Seattle Mariners vs Baltimore Orioles at the Seattle Mariner’s ‘Safeco” stadium on Saturday evening.

The massive roof rolls closed to enable the games to continue in Seattle rain. Below, you can see it open in the early evening sunlight as the field is prepared for the game. Baseball games are a fabulous American ceremony.

Preparation of the field is like a dance involving

• Mascot: Seattle Mariners use a person dressed as a ‘Moose’?! in slapstick style interactive antics.
• Autographs: team members sign autographs at the edge of the field.
• Overhead screens: play media clips of ‘bloopers’, games, and provide statistics.
• Colours: Before the game starts the colours (National, State and Utility - e.g. firemen) are marched onto the field
• Field preparation: the sand is sprayed with water, this appears like a tightly choreographed dance. The ‘lines’ are placed on the ground. Again this appears very ritualised
• National Anthem: a guest sings the National anthem while the crowd stands.
• Food: people walk up and down the isles calling-out the food types they are vending (popcorn, candy-floss, beer, lemonade). You catch their attention and purchase directly from them without leaving your seat. Alternatively you can walk to a huge walkway that surrounds the back of the stands and is completely bordered by food/drinks vendors.

This game included one minute of silence prior to the National Anthem to remember the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Essentially a shared experience, news system and re-inforcement of morale values.

W

‘The Making of the King James Bible’

Fabulous book full of socio-cultural,  historical,  political,  and economic insight.  He paints very rich pictures of the characters and events that lead to the way the King James Bible was produced.  Adams demonstrates incisive use of language with colourful illustrations of lost common knowledge.  For example,  did you know that the term ‘Stroke’ (apoplectic siezure) is a reference to a blow from an Angel?!  Nicolson often quotes original Jacobean English from letters.  Example

“I was forcid at last to saye unto thaime, that if any of thaime hadde bene in a colledge disputing with thair skollairs, if any of thaire disciples hadde ansourid thaim in that sorte, thay wolde have fetchid him up in place of a replye & so shoulde the rodde have plyed upon the poore boyes buttokis”. p54

Other excerpts that caught my imagination:

“Uniquely in England,  an increasignly powerful state had made itself synonymous with a - more or less - protestant church… …It bridged the divisions which in the rest of Europe had given rise to decades of civil war” p.38

 ”Jacobean England was an expressive culture (straight-laced continentals remarked on how often and warmly the English kissed)” p.45

Nicolson’s use of the English language is richly concise.  It was also challenging.  Here are examples of obscure descriptive words I double-checked in the dictionary….

Acquiesce, Agglutination, Amity, Anomolous Cantankerous, Carapace, Circumlocution 

Elision, Elysium, EmollientlyFissiveGrograin

Irenic

 

Largesse, Louche

Mollification

Niggardly

Obfuscation,

ObsequiousnessPanoply, Parsimonious, PaterfamiliasRecalcitrant, Reprobates, Redolent, Riven

Unctuous

Winnowing

W

To put it mildly.  I’m gutted. 

Checked out the CAMRA site today find a beer festival to attend while in the UK
Urrrghhh… …there arent any anywhere near (within 200miles) any of my stop-overs.
That will teach me to plan my flight and tour-route more carefully next time…

Wendy

Spent the day with friends at the Bumbershoot festival listening to music, playing in the International fountain, watching people shop and eat.

W

I fall over a lot.

It’s an art.

The picture below was taken accidentally mid-fall.  Accident upon accident… 

Wobbly Wendy