fdsailor.blog-city.com — December 2004

11:14 PM Quiet night

Well, white snow is still on the ground, and the general scene is about winter and Christmas. Normally the snow comes and the snow goes, periods of white then green. And this pattern continues, with less and less green. Then white through the core of winter. This pattern makes sense.

The Christmas lights started going up just after Thanksgiving. I always look forward this this, it is one of my favorite parts of winter here. Every house seems to show a personality. My favorite are the lights strung around small trees in front yards. You can't see the trees, of course - just the suspended jewels (or are they stars?) in air? I think (if I recall correctly) the Hindi have the concept of "festival of lights", which we seem to have adopted for our own purposes. For me, it is Christmas in a more real way than either the birth of Christ or of the shopping season.

Patterns. Sometimes patterns form the scaffold onto which wonderful, creative things can happen. At the same time, those same patterns, that same scaffolding stands in the way of large changes. Patterns form confort, patterns make higher art possible, but patterns prevent radical change.

Even though I don't understand a word of them (they are in Russian), Masha brings in a new world of music into my life - some I like, some doesn't work for me, but I am thankful for the new horizons and areas I would never have found myself. Here is a translation of one of them:

My friend, an artist and a poet.

One rainy day, my friend, an artist and a poet

Draw my LOVE on the window - showed me a miracle on the earth

I was sitting silently by the window and enjoyed silence

My LOVE have always been with me since the time

Refrain:

And time was flowing like water, and I always felt warm,

When on the rainy evening I watched to the window.

But year by year I saw sadness in my LOVE's eyes,

The dim sign of boredom...and so my LOVE changed its color...

My LOVE changed its color, the last bright day went out -

My love is covered with night shadow.

Chatter of magic colors, playing of magic fire...

My LOVE doesn't gladden me any more.

Refrain:

Delicate colors faded, height and depth disappeared

And there are no clear lines any more - here is the portrait of indifference

My Love looks into my eyes, and I am not cheerful and I'm not sad.

The earth's quit of colorless dreams shares silence with me.

And inspired face will lose its kind features,

My LOVE will finally die inside me.

And sad rain drops will flow down the window:

My LOVE is crying inaudibly leaving me.

Refrain:

And the sadness of further years will cover the rainbow of days which have passed

And there will be no trace of memories

The picture is melting on the window, and there is no hope to save it...

How can I paint my LOVE with colors of joy again?...

May be I should break the window and dip into another world

Where my friend, an artist and a poet, is drawing the solar light...

I like this song. No, this is not in anyway autobiographical - I am very happy and feel lucky with the rich life I have. But somewhere deep inside me is something that is touched by the words. I wish I could really understand it in its native language.

The tree is up and decorated. We got it last Sunday, and so now it is a transient part of our family. Last night we slept in the living room under its watching glow - an annual tradition, and a wonderful one. We love waking up in the middle of the night, perhaps a bit disoriented, and seeing the tree in all of its glory standing there.

I started a week ago to write an update on my various obsessions. Well, I had written quite a bit (without saving), then in a differnet window clicked on a link in an email. You, you guessed it - the page came up in the same web browser, overwriting my page. I was pissed (for a couple of reasons), and never rewrote the page. So now I will try to write a bit of it here...

First, the hot tub lid - remember that? Well, it is finished and installed. Final weight - 9 kg. Weight of the waterlogged cover it replaces: 31 kg! We'll see how it turns out and holds up over time... I will in a separate blog write the details for posterity, but won't bore "normal" readers here.

The next related project will be to replace the fabric overall cover, which has destroyed itself over the years. For this, I have identified the fabric to use - the rest is just planning and execution.

Next - the "rip our CD collection to the computer". Well, about 120 CDs ripped, about 180 CDs to go. Popular, musicals / soundtracks, choral and classical choral are finished. I am in the middle of Classical collections (these go really slow, since there are so many differnet works and composers on each CD, and the information is not always available on the online databases. Hopefully I will get though classical "E" by New Years, and finish by the end of January.

Next obsession (related) - hard drive MP3 players. Boy, I could write volumes about this, but won't bore anyone, since there is lots of better written stuff out there. The current state is that 1) iPod is king, and 2) if you ever want to purchase copyrighted music, with iPod, it is iTunes or nothing else. The rest of the world is MP3 / WMA, which has lots going for it, but none of the current players are as good as iPods. So I will wait for now - no hurry... But iPods have 92% of the market... And boy are they cute!

Published: Sunday, 19 December 2004