howeird | Jubilee, etc (Reply)

I woke up at about 7, Domino was curled up at the far foot of the bed, and I had no intention of getting going that early so I poked around on the internet radio through all the BBC choices, and stumbled upon a live feed from the Queen's jubilee parade - which was a floating down the Thames. Turned on the bedroom TV and poked around until I found BBC America, which was carrying the parade live as well, but it was in SD and the Comcast channel guide sucks puppies for finding the channel line-up, so I went out to the livingroom and found the HD equivalent on Tivo, and watched it there.

My first thought was it doesn't hold a candle to Seafair. Only 1,000 vessels. What a crock. Seattle gets more than that for the yearly opening day regatta. And I guess I'm spoiled, but the royal barge had some fancy gold stuff on the bow, but it was nothing compared to the King of Thailand's royal barge. BTW, he marked 63 years on the throne a month ago.

But there was a lot of music. A lot of very beautiful music. The BBC did not do as good a job as the could have (their announcers talked over almost everything) but you could see a lot of boats fitted out with orchestras, choruses, chanty singers, bands, you name it. The highlight was supposed to be the London Phil at the end of the event, but I haven't looked at the Tivo to see if they made it onto the air. It was pouring down rain by that time.

I missed the ending because it was late and I needed to get showered and dressed and manicured. I phoned my little sister, and that made me even later. She had posted on FB how she did not like Lactaid as a cure for lactose intolerance and I wanted to know why. Turns out she is against taking supplements of any kind. Had I been thinking, I'd have pointed out that the insulin which keeps me alive is a supplement in the same sense - it replaces something my body should make a lot of, but doesn't.

Off to the manicure place, only two people working, both busy. Read from my Kindle for about 45 minutes before there was an opening. Usually there are 5 people, but the owner said her daughter got mad & quit, and two people were out sick. Two times there, waited both times and both times the manicure was just adequate. Time to try the little place nearest the apartment instead.

Togo's for lunch, then home to attack the patio cat fence project. Cut a piece of fencing, wrestled it into place and gaffer taped it, but it needed something more to neaten it up and hold it against the gate. Went to Fry's and bought some 7" tie wraps. Tried those, they are too short for the top (horizontal) rail (it looks smaller because it's rectangular, not square) but I managed to tighten things up on the smaller vertical rails. That was enough for today, I was not about to do 18 speed bumps just for a pack of 14" tie wraps. The gaffer tape is not holding, so I'll need to tie wrap the top. Tomorrow.

The TV was still on BBC and they were doing the life of the Queen, probably three hours of it, and I watched two hours before the host got on my nerves, as did all the living PMs except Thatcher raving about how they need a queen and royalty and all that. Most other countries manage to fill the ceremonial role with someone not-royal, and considering the poor track record of her eldest son.... (Thailand has the same issue, but their monarchy is not reliant on direct descent, as I understand it, any prince can be named king).

More cat stuff:
Mixed the Iams dry food she pecks at half and half with Pumpkin's diabetes high-protein dry food, which she vacuums up when I toss handfuls at her, and stocked her food tower with that.
Took care of the litterbox.

I suppose I ought to make dinner.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Fry's
Cat fence
BASFA if there's time. I expect it will be packed.