Meanderings: March 14, 2000

Tuesday,
March 14, 2000

Another day, another crisis averted. I think I'm getting used to it now -- either that, or I'm so numb I simply don't care anymore.

Actually, I don't think it's that -- I'm a little tired (had these weird-ass dreams this morning that kept waking me up), but basically feeling good. Thanks to the good graces of Eva I finally got ahold of the Magical Disappearing Ex-Manager for WINE, and he gave me the rundown on who to call, where our new server is, how to set up accounts and ask for funding for the tool (blech -- I can do it, but I hate financial stuff), yadda yadda yadda. Now I just have to find someone here who knows JRun and other arcane incantations to the Cybernetic Gods and ask them to make sure that the server is prepped before infonation come in a week and install the final version.

Oh, and apparently we can't call it WINE, which is a bit of a bummer. But I don't like Pepper, either -- it's too much of a tie-in to the first educational package we made, and quite truthfully it's too much like Ping-Pong, which is apparently a commercial training app tool that is very similar. So, it's back to the drawing board -- and yes, I'm happy to take suggestions. Nothing weird, though.

On the home front, this is Tina's last week in Sweden -- she's flying back to England on Friday to submit her coursework and sign up for the A-level tests in June (and to spend some time with the lubricious J, but that's a completely different story). I know this sounds insane, but in a way I feel like I'm sending my little girl off to camp for the first time.

Of course, in a totally different way I'm going to miss having my female partner in crime around the house (although certain journalists will probably be relieved to hear this). No more giggling late nights at the Dragon Palace on Gamla Stan, no more male-scoping commentary over a glass of Archer's, no more bitch sessions about everything in general. Well, that sucks.

On the other land, I know how much she misses her friends, J and everybody back home, and this way she'll be back in the land of Polos and Pot Noodle. And Lyndon will be able to use her room as a study, so that's rather nice (he was going to use the basement office for his place, but the smell of fuel oil from the old tank kept making him queasy, so he's been writing and IRCing in the living room for the past 18 months, which is a bit of a bitch when we're watching TV).

So we have a mandate to have as much fun as is humanly possible this week before she flies off. God only knows what's on the books for tonight, but I'm pretty sure it includes chocolate.

Oh, that reminds me -- I've been thinking about various cultures way back in the dim dark past, and how some of them had a habit of maintaining a special hut or house for menstruating women (and all the male readers just covered their eyes with their hands and went, "EEWWWWWWWW!" Deal with it, boys). These places were always made out to be something horrible and shameful for the woman -- she was cast out from the bosom of her society for five days, forced to live apart because of her "unclean" state.

In retrospect, though, this ain't such a bad idea. I mean, think about it -- in a time when "all the conveniences" meant your very own midden heap, you'd get to go off to a little house for five days each month where you didn't have to cook, clean, sew, farm, butcher, take care of the kids, deal with the mighty hunter, et. Someone else brought you meals, and all you had to do was rest and drip.

("EEWWWWW! GROSS!!")

Is it just me, or does anyone else think we could use something like this today? Maybe a nice range of little houses sponsored in part by Tampax or O.B. -- fully wired, stocked with hot and cold running chocolate, Midol dispensers in every room, lots of loose, comfortable clothes and big, comfty chairs. A masseur on call 24 hours a day, heating pads for the really nasty cramps, a friendly counselor trained in Judo for the occasional times when your hormones turn you into a sobbing lunatic -- I mean, come on, this really has some potential here!

Hmm? Yes, it's that time of the month, why? DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?

Oh, dear. Sorry, folks. Time to go home, I think, see what the partner has cooked up for tonight. Heh, heh, heh. . .

TOP