Sunday 29 October 2000

Pic of the day: Wiev from the window of my brother's house. Not bad!

Mixed emotions

Woke up around 9 in the morning, after about 8 hours of sleep. My sleep was not quite as deep as usual, as I was sleeping in an unfamiliar bed; and a rather narrow one at that. I am used to sleeping in a double bed, all alone. Still, I woke refreshed and ready for a new day.

Finding a bathroom scales (or whatever those are called in English now, obviously I'm reading mostly medieval literature) I was surprised to find my weight at barely 85 kg. (I think you have to approximately double that to get pounds, or was that stones? I forget the various tribal measures, I'm afraid.) I guess that means that I'm no longer overweight at all, though I'm still comfortably within the normal range. The last ten years or so I have usually been around 91-92 kg, though at one extreme I was nearly 95 (after christmas, so not sure if that counts)! Of course, since I check my weight only once every second year or so, there may have been some variations.

With the balloon in my stomach completely gone too, I felt doubly ready for the day. Or at least for breakfast.

***

I don't know, I guess I had expected that we would go to the hospital early in the day. We did not, for various reason. More is the pity. According to my father, my mother was better then. When we arrived around the fall of dark, she was worse. Much worse. She was sleeping most of the time I was there, and woke up quite sick. My youngest brother was there with his wife and three children, the youngest being a baby girl who whined quite loudly at times. This did not seem to make a difference; I guess she did this at home too. I'm not at all sure my mother was aware that she wasn't at home. Well, reasonably enough when her family was all around.

It wasn't really a nice sight, then again it wouldn't be. On the bright side, her husband was at her side as usual, and three of her children were there. It was quite crowded. She wished us all well, though she thought it would go badly for her. That would be rather typical of her, thinking of others even when she's suffering. Obviously it sticks pretty deep.

***

While I'm here with my oldest brother, we put my digicam to good use. He took several nice pictures of his home and placed on his harddisk for future use. He's participating in a kind of ring that swaps homes for vacation, and needed to illustrate his home. I have not convinced him to create his own homepage yet; somehow he seems to have got the impression that you have to update it daily ... ;)

My nephew and niece here use the home computer almost all the time, to the point of actually quarreling over it. "What do you want the computer for?" I asked her. "You're a girl." "And?" "And girls are not supposed to be interested in computers." "Are you kidding or are you that dumb?" "I am kidding" said I, and was proud of her. Even though she's playing Tetris rather than programming - for now.

Her brother is playing Age of Empires every spare minute. It looks fun, somewhat similar to Civilizaton II and Pharaoh. In scope it is more like Civilization, but in structure and cuteness factor it more resembles Pharoh. I also noticed that he likes Heroes of Might & Magic. I think I'll do well enough with those games I have already. But it was fun getting a look at it.

At the hospital, I showed my pocket PC to my little nephew (5 years). He loved it to death, not least the character recognition. Whatever he scribbled, the computer interpreted it as some kind of character. He knows the characters, but he cannot write yet. Solitaire was also to his tastes. He does not know the game, but he loved to drag the cards around on the screen with the little stylus.

Oh yes, the pocket PC is a Cassiopeia E-125. Quite a little cute one. I call it "Knøttet". (It means, roughly, "the tiny one".) It seems the small ones go along well together...

Tomorrow I expect to spend much of the day at the hospital. We'll see.