Posted on by mwhybark

The saddest thing in the world

Sumit’s unexpected-by-me memorialization of his recently deceased wife, Kathryn Oates, 1970-2005, caught me utterly off guard and prompted a solid half-hour of spastic and vocal weeping which disturbed at least one of our cats, and prompted insistent, worried questions from my own wife. Sumit’s characteristic grace and intelligence are present in his eulogy for her. Listen closely, though, for his shining words cloak his pain. I feel it nonetheless.

Viv was rightly mystified at my reaction – after all, Sumit is not a close friend, and I did not even know that he was married. Her concern is well-grounded. My grief is both sympathetic and personal. It’s a direct reaction to my own experiences of loss, and as Sumit’s blog material is generally not personal, the post caught me unawares. I was immediately propelled into an accelerated experience of my own concerns and fears about the inevitable experience of losing my own loved ones.

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Burbs

We looked at a house this early afternoon that was amazingly huge and amazingly far away – for just a bit more than our base planning budget, we could afford a nearly 4000 square foot house – in Kent. As it happened, the home actually is within eyeshot of Greg’s parents’ house. We also have two pre-approvals in hand, with each lender noting that we could qualify for significantly larger loan amounts if we wanted. For now, we’re keeping it small and sane, though.

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time

after an in explicable interregnum, bloglines is operable upon the Treo, thanks be to God. My newly longer commute allows nearly twenty-four hours of blog postings to be despatched whilst en route.

Alas for the limitations the Palm broswer places on moblogging.

Note to the League: I will post links to moblog tools I use. I believe our inductee may have some use for them.

Tanggentially: I may be in a suit-wearing mood, but it’s too early to say. Said suit would be a black early-sixties sharkskin, very two-tone. I lack a hat.

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Practice

For over a year, I have played music with Greg and Karel on Thursday nights.

Karel has had a raft of scheduling conflicts, and so we have rescheduled. Tonight, that meant that I had the pleasure of watching the Friends spinoff Joey for the first time.

It’s truly no wonder that Thursday nights were originally selected for practice.

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Whiteface

Alright, one more thing before I crack the snoozer book. We’re going to one of the kabuki shows this weekend at the Paramount, and I can’t wait. I think I may have attended a kabuki performance around 1978 in Japan, but I do not have a clear recollection of it, and it may simply be a false memory. So far I have avoided my customary research binge, and thus retain nearly perfect ignorance about the form, save the most general facts: relatively old theatrical tradition, only male performers, etc.

I’m uncertain if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a rare thing, and that piques my interest. Should I retain this relative degree of ignorance, I hope I shall be able to use it to really look at the performance and form hypotheses that I can later analyze against all that tasty knowledge I’m now consciously avoiding.

I suppose it’s possible that this may also lead to an opera visit, as Viv has previously expressed interest in the form, while I have seen enough to know I don’t care for it.

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Siffy

You know, I’ve mentioned this before, so forgive me. The SIFFbloggers are really going to town over there – four, five posts a day, comments, building traffic, the whole schmeer. It makes me so proud.

Sniff.

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Noted!

When Matt and Bart both remark on a show, I think it must mean something.

Matt, I’m sorry I am tardy with the details of your assignment. I believe I intend to blog it, and what with various housing-related things and my suddenly hyperactive social life, I have been procrastinating furiously.

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Real

I spoke with the patriarch of the family that owns our building. The family bought it from Fred Anhalt, the architect (in the creative sense) and builder of the place, when he went bust subsequent to the Depression in the late nineteen-twenties. At least one, possibly two generations of this family have grown up in this apartment building. However, my understanding is that this patriarch – a wonderfully sweet and understanding man, my favorite landlord ever – is now alone in the family in his desire to retain the building.

The prospective buyer is a real estate management company which currently owns one Anhalt, and has chosen to manage the building as Fred Anhalt would have, as a rental property. That building is among the most carefully maintained of all the Anhalts in the neighborhood. However, the care which has been lavished on that building is reflected in the rent – apartments notably smaller than ours rent for about 1.5k, quite higher than our rent.

Stay tuned.

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oh yeah

In other news, Apple squeezes underperforming chip partner by making public announcement confirming years of rumors. Mac geeks dispirited; Intel, Apple, IBM stock down. So far no one I have read has asked: what does this mean for the G5 Xbox?

It won’t be me, because I could care less.

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two k!

whoo dawgies! sometime in the last, um, hour, the two-hundred-thousandth site visitor looked in upon us, presumably in response to the previous link-oriented post. Welcome, post-two-kay site visitors!