"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

I slipped, walking out of the bathroom last night after going in to (IIRC) wash my face and hands after coming home. My left foot slid under the corner of the open door, skinning two toes and digging a (relatively speaking) big chunk out of a third. It hurt like bloody hell (lots of nerves in the foot, I guess). astrongteacher was nice enough to clean up the damaged digits and put band-aids on them; I could replace them this morning after my shower, but last night it just hurt too much. I kept a bag of frozen peas (with mint :-) on them, off and on, while we watched the season finale of Treme, and the piggies felt much better by the time we went to bed. They are (mostly) normal today. Doesn't feel like anything's broken, thank goodness.

Other than that, last night was very nice--I got to hang out with the Thursday Night Boys and introduce them to a new wargame, which was a success, with people asking me to bring it back again. Nicest of all, it's a set of rules that gr_c17 bought me a while back that I've only had a few chances to play, but which I quite like, and it allows me to use some figures I bought AGES ago and had never done much with before (6mm Heroics & Ros Seven Years War Austrians and Prussians). Also, I get to go hang out with some of the lads tomorrow and game, before coming home and having a nice cookout with E and some of our neighbours. SO, life is pretty good right now, injuries notwithstanding.

20/50: Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid. Another tremendously good book by AR, showing what an able reporter he is, with a tremendous grasp of detail, amazing access, fearless in sticking to dangerous subjects (I really worry about him given recent events in Pakistan). He does have one problem with writing, in that he deals with narratives in such detail that sometimes he will pursue one thread and then backtrack and deal with another thread over the same period of time. It makes it seem a bit like hearing the same story over again, and I'd like it better if he integrated the threads better, but given the level at which he is writing, I realise that would sometimes be difficult.

I found reading (which is to say, listening to) this book very tough at times. We (the US) have done so much so badly in South Asia. It is a tricky place, and some of its problems are perhaps beyond any real solution. But we have made obviously bad choices--bad for the people who live there and also bad for us. Bad in the practical sense that the results of our choices have made us less effective there and made it harder for us to pursue our goals, but also bad in a more absolute sense, one of moral action. Supporting dictators, condoning bad and vicious rulers, bankrolling terrorists or turning a blind eye to their operations, using torture to extract information, using powerful, indiscriminate weapons of war against poorly discerned target, ignoring the rights and needs of civilians functionally under our protection...the list is very, very long. Most of it was done by an administration I opposed and hated, but it was done by the US nonetheless, and it makes me sick at heart. We allowed ourselves to be manipulated by some very, very bad people, and we did some things that were very, very bad ourselves, sometimes promising ourselves that the ends justified the means or other times not even considering or caring about the nature and consequences of the means.

But Descent is an excellent book, and if you are interested in what has happened in Afghanistan in the past decade (his narrative ends in about 2008) and want to get a really good grasp of who the players are and what the stakes may be in South and Central Asia, I strongly recommend it.

Books in progress

Red Branch by Morgan Llewellyn
The Sultan's Seal by Jenny White
The Williamite Wars in Ireland, 1688-1691 by John Childs
Islam by Karen Armstrong

81*F in the apartment, and that's balmy compared with the 100+F+ that it is outside this evening. BLECH!

Took effing forever getting home (over an hour and a half).

However, just now, some time to relax. gr_c17 coming over later. astrongteacher and I preparing for a long weekend getaway. Cold beer, and time to make dinner. MUCH better.

Hmmm, a brief moment of quiet in which to do a little writing and catch up again with the whirlwind of life.

( Work )

( Burbling about my lovely GF )

She shared two things with me last weekend that I want to share with all of you.

One was this video from 2008, which is silly and quirky but, to me, is somehow amazingly uplifting and sweet. Yes, I'm a sap.

The other is this film, which you can watch entirely online. Fascinating, entertaining, and beautiful, I thought.

( gaming )

The weather is beastly, hot and humid. Having the top-floor flat doesn't help. At 10pm, it's still nearly 85*F in here. Ugh.

All right. Maybe not much of a whirlwind, but it's keeping me busy. Back to Slings & Arrows and hanging out with my sweetie. :-)

First off, a link to some photos of recent events.

Not many, sadly, but a few from the birthday visit my nephews and their mums paid me in March, and then some photos from the trip The Teacher and I took to see a little of Philadelphia and to visit the aforementioned nephews and their mums on Easter weekend.

So, because there is too much to explain, let me sum up.

Things are going very well with The Teacher and me. I don't think it's giving anything away to say that we are both thoroughly in love with each other. We spend more time together, at this point, than apart, and we have yet to run into any "hitches or vexations" as they say in the Land of Green Ginger. Well, one or two small hitches, perhaps, but nothing serious. We've gone from marvelling at how much we have in common to noticing the important ways we are different and rejoicing that (at least so far) we are not finding any that pose problems. Mostly we do a lot of rejoicing, as both of us have found, to one extent or another, that we find the other to be, no someone who wants to change or "improve" us (a deadly danger), but someone who makes *us* want to change, or at least to be the best person we can be. I find myself less nervous, less prone to anger, more generous, more patient now that she is part of my life. More than the number of books we've both read or movies we've both loved or ideas we've both been moved by, we find places we want to go or experiences we want to share. And the simple but ineffable pleasure of being with someone who loves you as you are and cares deeply about you... it's such a very nice place to be.

We had a very nice trip to Philadelphia, where she had lived for several years. There's a great deal more to see than we saw, so I for one would love to go back. We spent a couple of days visiting my sister The Deacon and her family in New Jersey. They quite liked The Teacher, and the feeling was mutual. We got back just in time to race around cooking a Passover dinner for some friends, which went quite well, on the whole, even it it started a little late (only 8 pm this time, really!) We've been to a couple of DC United games, to the movies (to see Jane Eyre, which we both liked--I felt it did rather well at capturing the book), and we've started to plan all sorts of things to do together, including several trips and expeditions. I've introduced her to some of my favourite restaurants and to some telly (Slings and Arrows was a big hit! thank you again Christy!)

I should wrap up, as I need to get home and make dinner for my sweetie (who does the washing up, a very nice bargain for me, I think!)

I've finished several books and books on tape lately; no time to review them now, but hopefully I will later on.

The Zimmerman Telegram and The First Salute, by Barbara Tuchman (10/50 and 11/50)
Unnatural Death and The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers (12/50 and 13/50) re-reads
A Cluster of Separate Sparks by Joan Aiken (14/50) re-read
China Road by Rob Gifford (15/50)

Books "in progress":

The Grand Scuttle: The Sinking of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919 by Dan Van der Dat
Theoretical Criminology by George B. Vold et al.
Understanding China by John Bryan Starr
Red Branch by Morgan Llewellyn
Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 by Thomas Desjardins
Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid

Whew! Got my taxes done (far too close tot he last minute!) And a nice bit of cash to come back, which maybe The Teacher and I can use for some of the trips we keep planning for our spare time (ha! as if we had any of that!)

She and I had a delicious dinner with C& M last night. She really liked them a lot (as who wouldn't) and everyone seemed to get on well.

I got the latest car tuneup accomplished after about 3-4x as long as it should have taken, nuking most of my day.

Also had a very fun game of Battlefront over the weekend with some of the lads, followed by a game of Agricola. I'm almost sure my hairsbreadth victory had nothing to do with forgetting to tell them important rules until near the end of the game. (Which john_arundel swears is part of my fiendish MO.

Speaking of him, The Teacher and I also went out yesterday to see the MTT field at Marietta. Master Arundel was there with Sir Geoffrey Peel's Company, all looking prosperous and healthy despite the rain Saturday. We stopped and talked to people from several other groups, including fellows from The Ship's Company, who had erected a slice of a ship's gundeck as their camp. Also some WOTR chaps, a group of 1er REP, an East German infantryman, and some early Byzantine types. Oh, plus lads of the 84th RHE (Rev War) and a motley group of Jacobites. :-D

Princeton: "What are you doing tonight?"
Kate: "Grading term papers. But it's Kindergarten, so they're very short" ( Read more... )