A day full of birthdays...

[fajrdrako]

No Tai Chi today; the day was slated for housecleaning. I did a magnificent job of procrastinating for a good part of the morning, but my procrastination involved doing important things I'd wanted to do (like writing!) so it's all to the good. Then I cleaned and tidied the apartment - oh, that ghastly pile of papers beside my desk! - and put up my Christmas decorations.

That done, I went to Joy Wilson's 90th birthday party at the The Peter D. Clark Long-Term Care Home - the same place Beulah's 104-year-old mother lives. They had a three-layer chocolate cake with caramel icing; I've never tasted anything so sweet. Almost swore off food forever. But... not quite. By suppertime, I was quite happy with the Chinese food we got from Pe-Nan Wok and ate at maaseru's place with Lil.

Then it was back down to my place for a birthday party for Sandi. I got my various friends to help me identify people in pictures from years ago - filling in a few names, but not all, on half-remembered faces from Ottawa fandom.

Somewhere during the day - between laundry and going to the garbage room - I seem to have acquired a rather beautiful telescope that someone discarded.

Taken during the cake-and-tea portion of the evening, here's a photo of my decorated harp and the telescope.

Comments

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Beautiful harp! What kind is it?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's a Browne & Buckwell concert harp from c. 1860. I love it rather a lot.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is indeed very pretty.

Is the telescope usable?

You may be interested (slightly off topic) in my philosophical take (http://duncanmac.livejournal.com/24903.html) on the subject of prohibition.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree with you, at least in principle.

But I'm not sure that prohibition and censorious laws are the way to go.

I think the currently handling of smoking laws is working well: don't forbid it, but narrow the places where it may be used.

But maybe that's a wimpy answer. Maybe they should just do away with it altogether.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that prohibition and censorious laws are the way to go.

Indeed. That is why I complained about "True Believers" near the end of my post. In effect, subjects which should be decided by consensus are being decided by people "lured by the loudest throat" (yes, I'm quoting Kipling here). The quarrels over abortion (better to call it a screaming match about same) is perhaps the clearest example, but plenty of others (Prohibition anyone?) also exist.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There are no lack of controversies in this world. And things people can't agree about. There are wars over things that seem irrelevant to outsiders.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, the telescope is usable - Pat seemed to think so, and he's my local expert. I haven't actually tried to use it yet.

[filkferengi]

Ooh, shiny!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

If you can't be shiny at Christmas, when could you be?