What’s on your mind?

[Scepticalscribe]

Despite the feelings carried by your loss, I still wish you a happy birthday. Happy does not necessarily mean cheerful in this case; at times happiness can be a warm memory, or even a poignant one that makes us appreciate what love for someone really is.

Thank you. And that is beautifully expressed.

I had crate of wines delivered this morning - mostly white Burgundies - but also including a bottle of Amarone and a bottle of an excellent Spanish reserve. The wine shop added a mature Riesling with a note saying "happy birthday! Enjoy a glass on us!" - a lovely and kind gesture.

Last night, I had a chat with my brother; we agreed that we both felt sad, but not regretful, sorrow but no guilt.

We are easy about the circumstances of her death, - as we had her at home with 24 hour care in place for six years - and this sense of - I suppose comfort, and ease - is the payoff. I am comfortable with how she passed away, and easy, but somewhat sad and - obviously - I miss her.

Not just that I miss her, but there is a gap where the role I played in her life - ordering it, organising it, being responsible for her life and wants and needs - used to be, even if, at times, I may have resented it, finding it constricting and constraining.

But yes, when I think of her - and that is often enough - I have warm thoughts and memories. And some of them bring smiles.
[doublepost=1554990659][/doublepost]However, I cannot complain: My wine merchant sent out an extra bottle (of Riesling) in the crate of wine that was delivered this morning, the carer texted me wishing me well for my birthday, (most kind, and very thoughtful, as she now works for others) and her friend informed me that she had planned to call in this week-end, or when I return from the Ukraine, in order to prepare a birthday treat of Filipina noodles - a tradition in the Philippines when celebrating someone's birthday, which she had always prepared for me on - or around - my birthday - if I was home at the time.

 

[Gutwrench]

As it happens, today is my birthday...

Happy birthday, my friend.

Try not to allow yesterday to use up too much of today.

I love George Burns...”When I was young the Dead Sea was still alive.”

 

[decafjava]

Happy birthday, my friend.

Try not to allow yesterday to use up too much of today.

I love George Burns...”When I was young the Dead Sea was still alive.”

What a nice birthday sentiment. Happy birthday to our eloquent coffee lover - may you be awarded by the Ethiopian coffee growers association!

 

[yaxomoxay]

Canceled my News+ trial subscription. It just sucks.

 

[Clix Pix]

As it happens, today is my birthday; more to the point, it is my first birthday where my mother (without whom I would not be here) is no longer with us, a point mad most kindly by both brothers when they got in touch today.

Now, in fairness and in truth, with her advanced dementia she hadn't known that today was my birthday for around the best part of the past decade.

For that matter, last August, she didn't know that it was her own birthday we celebrated, just that someone was being sung to and had their birthday celebrated - it was strange to see, how, with dementia she fully knew the words - and tune - of that song, but completely lacked the comprehension, the understanding, to know exactly what it meant in connection with her. And she was thrilled to be invited to blow out the candles on the cake. She enjoyed the celebration, but didn't realise that we were celebrating her.

So, I am feeling somewhat sad, infused with bitter-sweet thoughts, but informed by, and tempered, by warm memories and positive feelings.

Have a pleasant birthday today -- saying "Happy" just sounds wrong somehow) and yes, this is a time for reflection and memories and thinking of your mother..... My own birthday fell just a week after my mother's and we usually celebrated together when we could through the years, especially in the later years. On my mother's birthday I always get daffodils (both March babies, this is "our flower") and either go out for a meal of shrimp (which we both dearly loved) on my own or with friends as well as look at photos and think back on some special memories. Each year I always celebrate my mother's birthday and, although it's a bittersweet day since she is no longer here, it is an important day and always has been. My own birthday, coming up so soon after, is sort of a continuation of everything and although I'm usually doing things with others then, my mother is still very much in my heart and in my thoughts that day, too. The bond between mother and daughter is never really broken.....

 

[chown33]

... go out for a meal of shrimp (which we both dearly loved) ...

Heads up to anyone interested, mark April 29 on your calendar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scampi#National_Shrimp_Scampi_Day

 

[Apple fanboy]

As it happens, today is my birthday; more to the point, it is my first birthday where my mother (without whom I would not be here) is no longer with us, a point mad most kindly by both brothers when they got in touch today.

Now, in fairness and in truth, with her advanced dementia she hadn't known that today was my birthday for around the best part of the past decade.

For that matter, last August, she didn't know that it was her own birthday we celebrated, just that someone was being sung to and had their birthday celebrated - it was strange to see, how, with dementia she fully knew the words - and tune - of that song, but completely lacked the comprehension, the understanding, to know exactly what it meant in connection with her. And she was thrilled to be invited to blow out the candles on the cake. She enjoyed the celebration, but didn't realise that we were celebrating her.

So, I am feeling somewhat sad, infused with bitter-sweet thoughts, but informed by, and tempered, by warm memories and positive feelings.

Happy birthday! Hope you did something nice to celebrate it.
[doublepost=1555005835][/doublepost]

The bond between mother and daughter is never really broken.....

I'd have to disagree with this one. And not just my own situation!

Happy belated birthday for March!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Happy birthday, my friend.

Try not to allow yesterday to use up too much of today.

No, in truth, I'm not.

Instead, I am acknowledging "yesterday" and all of our shared yesterdays, facing the future (or trying to) while honouring and integrating the best of the memories of the past.

I love George Burns...”When I was young the Dead Sea was still alive.”

What a lovely sentiment, and thanks for sharing it. I'm smiling, reading it.

Paradoxically, my Mother loved the swimming in the Dead Sea (and almost nowhere else); the temperature suited her - I have inherited the marked preference of both parents for warmth - and the salinity meant that she floated without any effort whatsoever; just relaxed tranquillity.

What a nice birthday sentiment. Happy birthday to our eloquent coffee lover - may you be awarded by the Ethiopian coffee growers association!

Yes, the Ethiopians definitely owe me; not least their coffee growers and producers.

Actually, their government has changed (peacefully, and broadly for the better) in the past year and - should my work ever take me to the Horn of Africa again, Ethiopia is a country that I should like to visit. If only to make the acquaintance of some of the best coffee on the planet.

Thank you for your good wishes.

Have a pleasant birthday today -- saying "Happy" just sounds wrong somehow) and yes, this is a time for reflection and memories and thinking of your mother..... My own birthday fell just a week after my mother's and we usually celebrated together when we could through the years, especially in the later years. On my mother's birthday I always get daffodils (both March babies, this is "our flower") and either go out for a meal of shrimp (which we both dearly loved) on my own or with friends as well as look at photos and think back on some special memories. Each year I always celebrate my mother's birthday and, although it's a bittersweet day since she is no longer here, it is an important day and always has been. My own birthday, coming up so soon after, is sort of a continuation of everything and although I'm usually doing things with others then, my mother is still very much in my heart and in my thoughts that day, too. The bond between mother and daughter is never really broken.....

I love daffodils, too, and my mother used to plant some to please me.

Actually, I'm partial to cherry blossom, as well.

Lovely post, and thank you for it.

Happy birthday! Hope you did something nice to celebrate it.
[doublepost=1555005835][/doublepost]
I'd have to disagree with this one. And not just my own situation!

Happy belated birthday for March!

Thank you.

I think a nice bottle of white Burgundy has it in mind to proffer birthday greetings before too long.

 

[Apple fanboy]

No, in truth, I'm not.

Instead, I am acknowledging "yesterday" and all of our shared yesterdays, facing the future (or trying to) while honouring and integrating the best of the memories of the past.




What a lovely sentiment, and thanks for sharing it. I'm smiling, reading it.

Paradoxically, my Mother loved the swimming in the Dead Sea (and almost nowhere else); the temperature suited her - I have inherited the marked preference of both parents for warmth - and the salinity meant that she floated without any effort whatsoever; just relaxed tranquillity.




Yes, the Ethiopians definitely owe me; not least their coffee growers and producers.

Actually, their government has changed (peacefully, and broadly for the better) in the past year and - should my work ever take me to the Horn of Africa again, Ethiopia is a country that I should like to visit. If only to make the acquaintance of some of the best coffee on the planet.

Thank you for your good wishes.




I love daffodils, too, and my mother used to plant some to please me.

Actually, I'm partial to cherry blossom, as well.

Lovely post, and thank you for it.



Thank you.

I think a nice bottle of white Burgundy has it in mind to proffer birthday greetings before too long.

With your brother if he’s around? Enjoy your wine.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

With your brother if he’s around? Enjoy your wine.

No, both brothers have texted and emailed and Decent Brother will phone this evening.

He brought me back some good port from Porto, (where he spent last a long week-end last week-end, and where he borrowed my small, brown, sturdy but soft, reindeer hide, leather rucksack which I usually use as hand luggage) which he has said is my birthday present, which is very decent of him.

I doubt that I shall lay hands on the port until my return from Ukraine.

 

[chown33]

No, both brothers have texted and emailed and Decent Brother will phone this evening.

He brought me back some good port from Porto, (where he spent last a long week-end last week-end, and where he borrowed my small, brown, sturdy but soft, reindeer hide, leather rucksack which I usually use as hand luggage) which he has said is my birthday present, which is very decent of him.

I doubt that I shall lay hands on the port until my return from Ukraine.

I always grin seeing where this object travels to next.

 

[Conutz]

I have no appetite. I'm totally terrified about how this will all go.

Best wishes

Glad I found another player! I still want to beat my own record for the "default" track (1:13)!!!

Haha, i can’t remember that far back! Do you still play?!

@Scepticalscribe Happy Birthday

 

[Clix Pix]

Happy birthday! Hope you did something nice to celebrate it.
[doublepost=1555005835][/doublepost]
I'd have to disagree with this one. And not just my own situation!

Happy belated birthday for March!

You are right, AFB -- that was a thoughtless and inaccurate comment..... What I should have said was something along the lines of "in many situations the bond between mother and daughter is unbroken," or probably better yet, said nothing at all in regard to that!

Thanks for the belated birthday wish!

 

[Apple fanboy]

You are right, AFB -- that was a thoughtless and inaccurate comment..... What I should have said was something along the lines of "in many situations the bond between mother and daughter is unbroken," or probably better yet, said nothing at all in regard to that!

Thanks for the belated birthday wish!

No problem. Most people would probably agree with you.

My senior management meeting we had this afternoon is on my mind.

 

[arkitect]

As it happens, today is my birthday; more to the point, it is my first birthday where my mother (without whom I would not be here) is no longer with us, a point mad most kindly by both brothers when they got in touch today.

Very happy birthday to someone who's comments and views I thoroughly enjoy.

I hope you had a wonderful birthday (day as the evening still lies ahead full of possibilities!) filled with good coffee, excellent cheese, great wine, friends and wonderful warm memories.

Here's to many more! *Cheers*!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I always grin seeing where this object travels to next.

It is like one of those "where's Wally?" cartoons; that rucksack has travelled to the Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia), several countries in central Asia (including some of the world's troubled spots), a few in the Horn of Africa (including some more of the world's troubled spots), Russia, Belarus, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, and civilised spots in western Europe such as France.

My brother brought it to Bordeaux, Lisbon, Porto, and Sicily.

Actually, the rucksack (which was handmade) was purchased in a small family owned leather shop in the Old Town (Gamla Stan) of Stockholm nine years ago.

Yes, it was quite expensive; however, I had wanted something well made, very much liked the look of it, and asked the owner of the shop (her husband had made it, she hauled him out of a backroom so that I could meet him) how long it would last (a silly and stupidly expensive Camel canvas rucksack had split on me on a visit to Italy not long before). "Longer than you will," came the lugubrious reply, which was softened to a grumbled, "probably around a hundred years, at least." She further explained that it was an Arctic style, and made from reindeer hide.

Needless to say, I bought it on the spot.

Swedish friends boasted similar rucksacks, letting me know that they had inherited them from parents who had used them at university "so they are at least twenty five or thirty years old, so maybe it is true, that these rucksacks can last for up to a hundred years."

Anyway, yes, agreed, a very widely travelled object.

If I manage to retrieve it in time, it will return with me to Ukraine next week.

@Scepticalscribe Happy Birthday

Thank you. Very kind of you.

Very happy birthday to someone who's comments and views I thoroughly enjoy.

I hope you had a wonderful birthday (day as the evening still lies ahead full of possibilities!) filled with good coffee, excellent cheese, great wine, friends and wonderful warm memories.

Here's to many more! *Cheers*!

Thank you, my friend.

I have had cheeses and coffee; now, a bottle of Meursault (a stunning white Burgundy) is keeping me company.

 

[Apple fanboy]

My bed is on my mind. Tired. Will be asleep soon I’m sure.

 

[AngerDanger]

I started reading Jony Ive's biography. So far, it's good I read in the bath; it is so dry. At first, I couldn't help but read his quotes in his distinctive voice, but even that wore off. I don't know how much longer I'll hold out. Wish me luck.

 

[chown33]

I started reading Jony Ive's biography. So far, it's good I read in the bath; it is so dry. At first, I couldn't help but read his quotes in his distinctive voice, but even that wore off. I don't know how much longer I'll hold out. Wish me luck.

You could spice it up by drawing frames in the margins for a flip-book animation of Jony talking.

I've heard that pencils (the classic kind, Ticonderoga, et al.) are generally waterproof.

 

[AngerDanger]

You could spice it up by drawing frames in the margins for a flip-book animation of Jony talking.

I've heard that pencils (the classic kind, Ticonderoga, et al.) are generally waterproof.

That really is a fantastic suggestion, and I appreciate it, but I'm a pretty terrible animator.

Wi—without linear and bezier curves to dictate motion of course! Hahaha…

 

[LizKat]

I started reading Jony Ive's biography. So far, it's good I read in the bath; it is so dry. At first, I couldn't help but read his quotes in his distinctive voice, but even that wore off. I don't know how much longer I'll hold out. Wish me luck.

Is it Leander Kahney's book? I tried letting an audiobook narrator read it to me. I'm afraid I'm still barely a quarter of the way through it. I bought the audio files like four and a half years ago! It's a book I wanted to like because I've admired a lot of of Ive's work and wanted to know more about his background and education.

It does come off as pretty dry, at least up through 1:45 of an 8-hour reading by Simon Vance. Mind you the audiobook hasn't made me dislike Ive, just hasn't persuaded me to go straight to an e-book format or paperback either. So I'm afraid it may be down to Mr. Kahney's presentation of "just the facts, ma'am." I may have to finish this one in my time-honored way of sleeping through it by listening to it upstairs on a timer before I sleep... setting the timer to 45 minutes each night, and falling asleep in 10 minutes max no matter how riveting or boring the tale.

 

[AngerDanger]

Is it Leander Kahney's book?

Yeeeeeeep. Extremely.

I tried letting an audiobook narrator read it to me. I'm afraid I'm still barely a quarter of the way through it. I bought the audio files like four and a half years ago! It's a book I wanted to like because I've admired a lot of of Ive's work and wanted to know more about his background and education.

Ditto. Apple has had its fair share of falters in my eyes, and I'm really not of fan of the service-oriented direction it's taking, the recent quality of products (save for the AirPods I'll wear to the grave), the neglect of certain devices, blah blah blah… Point is, the quality of design has not wavered since Ive's first contribution, which was the 2nd gen Newton, ironically.

It does come off as pretty dry, at least up through 1:45 of an 8-hour reading by Simon Vance. Mind you the audiobook hasn't made me dislike Ive, just hasn't persuaded me to go straight to an e-book format or paperback either. So I'm afraid it may be down to Mr. Kahney's presentation of "just the facts, ma'am." I may have to finish this one in my time-honored way of sleeping through it by listening to it upstairs on a timer before I sleep... setting the timer to 45 minutes each night, and falling asleep in 10 minutes max no matter how riveting or boring the tale.

I think that's my issue too. Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs was similar, but Steve was such a strong character (not a nice one) that I found myself interested anyway. Maybe Ive's soft-spoken and modest personality and Kahney's tone kill it for me.

If it's of any use, I've distilled what I've read so far for you to dip your toe in the water with:

"Jony made something really nice but didn't say much about it. Impressed, a person commissioned another nice thing that Johny was tight-lipped about. This was followed by another product he didn't talk about."

 

[LizKat]

Yeeeeeeep. Extremely.


Ditto. Apple has had its fair share of falters in my eyes, and I'm really not of fan of the service-oriented direction it's taking, the recent quality of products (save for the AirPods I'll wear to the grave), the neglect of certain devices, blah blah blah… Point is, the quality of design has not wavered since Ive's first contribution, which was the 2nd gen Newton, ironically.


I think that's my issue too. Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs was similar, but Steve was such a strong character (not a nice one) that I found myself interested anyway. Maybe Ive's soft-spoken and modest personality and Kahney's tone kill it for me.

If it's of any use, I've distilled what I've read so far for you to dip your toe in the water with:

"Jony made something really nice but didn't say much about it. Impressed, a person commissioned another nice thing that Johny was tight-lipped about. This was followed by another product he didn't talk about."

That does sound vaguely familiar. Well I haven't thought about the book for quite awhile so I'll load it onto the iPod touch I use upstairs and see if my 45 minutes a night advancement (and hasty rewind to half or less of that each successive night) manage to plunk me down in a more interesting segment of the book.

I've no desire to fault Simon Vance's reading of what may be the result of Leander's inability to get something massively exciting out of the story of a rather reserved person. Jony Ive apparently puts most of his energy into design, likes seeing his ideas go through to completion and has little tolerance for sometimes having to get involved in marketing or "business" considerations per se. For all we know he has no clue what makes him a genius at design anyway. It's part gift and part dogged application, no? We never really know where the gift part comes from in any gifted person of legendary accomplishment. We know they work hard. We're not sure what else made Bach Bach and Vivaldi Vivaldi, no serious offense to the latter.

It's great for the world that Jony Ive did land at Apple, because most places that employ designers do so in a faux-obbligato sort of way ("design is huge, HUGE: everyone needs a designer, that's just a given!!") but then again most places essentially abuse their designers' talents by extracting bits and pieces of their work and trying to paste that onto something cheap they can roll out the door for a fast dollar.

I just wish Kahney had managed to extract more of the spark of Ive's genius into his relating of Jony's adventures and in particular at Apple. Maybe no one could have done that. But maybe... maybe someone else should give it another shot sometime.

 

[LizKat]

Canceled my News+ trial subscription. It just sucks.

I want to wait until I hear Apple software staff have done some enhancements. I hope that happens before they stop offering a free trial. Even so I have a feeling I'm unlikely to ditch the subscriptions I already have. I'm used to the separate apps and their formats and I enjoy the variety in their design and operation.

 

[0388631]

I enjoy listening to Etta James. I enjoy listening to her songs more when I've got a nice glass of scotch next to me.