Odds & Ends
You’re right: this picture is out of focus. More out of focus than usual. Another thing that I have to see to pronto is the amassing of a collection of stock photographs that I can run when I’ve nothing more — timely.
So much to do. So many small things. I need to learn more about the iPod/Nano, for example. I turned it on the other day, and let it work its way through the music that I’ve uploaded. For some reason, it decided to clump the composers. It played all of the Mozart offerings before moving on to Poulenc’s Sinfonietta and then all of the Ravel — and so on. I’d put the thing on “shuffle,” but that doesn’t work with classical music. From the earliest days of digitized music, no one has ever bothered to teach player devices to treat symphonies and concertos as units. To the iPod and its CD predecessors, a symphony is just an album of four-odd songs, not “movements” meant to be played in a fixed order. Here is my prayer: let me shuffle the Mozart piano concertos, but don’t shuffle the movements.
I have the feeling that while I might just have made myself clear to other classical-music listeners, my don’t-shuffle-the-movements problem means nothing to most iPod users.
That’s just one thing. Then I have to call the appliance repair people who fixed the oven two years ago. At that time, the igniter was broken, and the gas wouldn’t necessarily light. Not good. Now the oven has a different problem: it’s not “cycling.” Gas ovens, you see, burn at only at the maximum. The temperature is regulated by a thermometer (a coil of metal, I believe) that shuts the gas off when the oven reaches the desired temperature, and then turns it back on when the oven cools. When this thermometer malfunctions, the oven simply broils everything. Not so bad, but, still, not good.
Then there’s the wi-fi reception in the bedroom. Too mysterious for words! Call the wi-fi doctor!
Several Christmas cards await responses. Not many — fewer than a dozen. I believe that the Christmas card season does not end until Martin Luther King Day.
Speaking of Christmas, there’s the Christmas stuff to put away. Surely one of the wonders of Christmas is that putting the Christmas stuff away is every bit as satisfying as taking it all out.
There are a few thank-you notes to write. Vainglorious ambition is my undoing when it comes to thank-you notes. I always want to write something immortally complimentary. Now that I am elderly, however, and actually receive than-you notes, I asm reminded that the delight of such missives lies in the receipt. If I weren’t afraid of being fearfully indiscreet, I’d thank LXIV right here for the smashing cocktail party that he threw for my birthday (and for the second year in a row!) at his jewel of a flat overlooking — a well-known open space. The only detail that I feel entirely free to divulge concerns one of the hors d’oeuvres, wickedly well-seasoned shrimps wrapped in bits of bacon! My two favorite food groups in one bite! It was too magnificent.
So much for tasty tidbits. It’s back to real life and its laundry list of chores. No wonder I let the holidays stretch out until the second week of January!