First Time for Everything

The MIL called a few minutes ago, and after talking about the weather for a few minutes, she asked how we were coping with the loss of the cat. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I believe that this is the first time in the 30+ years that I have known her that she has ever initiated a conversation about something sad. I was almost too surprised to answer, but I did, and we shared the experience of being catless for several minutes. (She lost her last one maybe five years ago, after a lifetime of always having a cat, and made what I think was a sound decision not to get another one. She's got a full-time job on her hands looking after her husband.)

Slight change of reading plans, not that anyone cares, but this is a diary, after all. I'm reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon, which apparently won a Pulitzer Prize -- it's got a gold medallion thingy on the cover that says "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize", so there you go -- and I really don't know how I missed this one until now. It's a novel, but it's essentially the story of two Jewish boys in the 1930s, one of them a refugee from Nazi Europe, who create a comic-book superhero. Hmmm, where have I heard that before? You know, I could make a list of the things that have obsessed me in my life, like Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Beatles, but Superman would have to be at the top of my list, either chronologically or in order of importance. Superman occupied my consciousness from the ages of 7 to 17, and I have long known the story of Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel and their creation of the prototype of the superhero. Anyway, the book looks good so far; I'll let you know how it turns out.

I have my few errands set for tomorrow morning, and my list of questions for the genius at the Apple Store. One of the things I've never quite found on the Mac is the little application that was called Character Map in Windows. I read a tantalizing little article the other day that tells me where to find something comparable in Office and other programs, but that it doesn't exist as a standalone app. What I want to know is, how can I put an accented character here, in Blogger? That's just one question; another funny thing is that I was told when I bought the machine that I never need to defrag, that they'll take care of that at the yearly tune-up. Cute, but I don't want to leave the machine there for 24 hours for the yearly tune-up, so they need to show me how to do what maintenance I need to do. And a few more things here and there.

I've got me a bit of a headache now, so I'm going to take something and go read some.

WATCHING NEWS :: ENTRY #1551