Saturday, April 19, 2008

I Guess I Could Have Gone Out

It is cloudy and cold but the wind has died down and there isn't any rain. It did rain earlier and will probably rain later, but Sue's magic seems to have worked so I could have ridden this morning. Oh well ... I have spent my time less profitably trying to making the NYT crossword download software download and to get CyclingTV's on-demand service to work. So far my e-mails about my problems have not brought any solutions.

Otherwise I just ate cereal, drank coffee, and read the NYT and the News-Gazette. Lots on the earthquake in the latter. It is hard to believe that central Illinois is part of an active earthquake zone. The big question is evidently whether the Wabash fault, which caused this earthquake, and the New Madrid fault are related. The geologists are divided on the question.

The other thing I did was order some more books. I think between the books I have ordered, the journal articles I have found, and the stuff that will be coming from the library I will have more than enough material. There are some new things on Federico da Montefeltro, who is certainly not central to the concerns of the institute but are relevant to my own interests. Anyway, I now have to figure out what to bring to Venice and whether I will need my computer. Certainly if I want to work on the syllabus having the computer would be helpful, even if I don't have the access to the web to upload. I could also take better notes typing than writing. On the other hand, bringing the computer is one more thing to load down my luggage and I would have to worry about theft. I think I will discuss it with Julie today since I am pretty sure that she brought her computer when she went to Italy in 2006.

I have been thinking more seriously about recreating the course abroad and perhaps situating it in Venice. I will probably float the idea to Michael Shapiro when we are at the institute. If Shaul is also interested and Claudio could do the arrangements, apartments for the students might be an inexpensive answer and might also keep them at a distance so we wouldn't worry quite so much. Also, having Peter involved as a guest lecturer and not as the TA might be good. Of course it would make the whole thing more expensive for us, but that might not be so awful. Nothing can be done until 2010 anyway. Next year isn't feasible and the trip to Central Asia will take up time and energy.

Rich and I talked yesterday and it looks like my mom will be moving into an assisted living place within the next month. Mark is getting ready to put the house up for sale and to move her. I don't want anything from the house, so they can just have a contents sale for the things she can't take with her. I am sure she will be resistant, but I hope that she will settle in without too many problems.

Last night we watched "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis." It is so well done but also very depressing, even though you never actually see the deportation. Oddly enough, I thought I had seen that when I saw the film a few years ago, but I am probably mixing it up with "Life is Beautiful" or some other film.

One thing I need to do today is send out an e-mail for tomorrow. I am hoping that we will have decent afternoon weather tomorrow.

Well, time to run errands before I meet Julie and Rosemary for lunch.

Update: To kill time I went to Body 'n Sole and ended up with another pair of shoes. They are gray Keens and I think they will be my everyday shoes in Venice and the Calistoga Keens will be the slightly dressier shoes. I also stopped at Natural Gourmet for some organic dried veggies for soups and casseroles and at Great Harvest for scones and cookies.

I met Julie and Rosemary at Sunsinger and overindulged on dessert. They had little trifle-like desserts in small glasses that were very pretty and very good. Unfortunately it was a set of three different ones and I ate them all. Then we went to Talbots but I didn't need any clothes. We also went to Borders but I didn't get any books. I have so much to read already that I can't bring myself to buy any more books right now.

All of this shows that I have too much stuff and that eating like this is not going to help me lose weight!

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for your kind comments. I am confused about the language issue since my native language is English and I live in the US.

    ReplyDelete