Plumbing

The word "plumbing" comes from plumbum, the Latin word for lead. That's because in Roman times they used lead for water pipes.  There's a theory that these pipes caused lead poisoning among the population, leading to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire!

In our bathtub, if the water reaches the spillway level, some of the spillway water will leak and drip through the ceiling below.  I don't know where the leak is exactly, though it must be near the tub itself, so all we can do is not fill up the bathtub too high.  There's a problem to solve!

Speaking of problem solving, I now have the problem that I'm doing too many things at once.  Last week was my opera group's first rehearsal--this year we're doing Fidelio and The Magic Flute.  But I missed it because I'd completely forgotten about it!

Problem solving

When I was thirteen or so, I first heard the expression, "That's your problem!" When I thought about it, it really bothered me that some people would look at somebody else's problem as something they wouldn't help with!  I like to help other people with their problems whenever I can. (My mother was like that too.)

I have Asperger's Syndrome.  Is it a problem for me?  Some people say I'm on the "spectrum" of autistic disorders.  I myself don't care for that view, because compared to what low-functioning autistics are dealing with, my problems look pretty small!  To me it's more of a partial inconvenience.

I like logic problems.  Remember the one that asks, "Who drinks water?  Who owns the zebra?" (I've solved it:  it's the Norwegian and the Japanese respectively.) There was one puzzle I couldn't solve involving parents who have either a son or a daughter.  One of the clues was "Jane is Al's daughter," and I didn't realize that this meant that Al had a daughter instead of a son.  But to my mind, the sentence doesn't mean that! ("Al's daughter is not Jane," on the other hand, would mean that.)

Royalty

I've recently been watching on Netflix the British series The Crown about the early years of Elizabeth II's reign.  It's very intelligent and well-made. (I especially like the actress playing Princess Margaret.) Winston Churchill doesn't come off well--when London's suffering from the deadly pea soup fog, he wants to talk about Prince Philip taking flying lessons!

Prince Philip recently retired from active duties--he's 96 and has been getting senile. (Did you know that when he was a kid, his first language was mainly French?) When I think of Prince Philip I think of Spitting Image, the '80s satirical puppet show that made fun of the royals a lot.  They had him singing songs like "Way down among the common people..." and had dialogue like this:

"Say, are you Prince Philip?"

"Oh, bugger off, you tit!"

"I knew it was him!"

Prince Charles has made some serious mistakes, but I still like him.  And I agree with him that most modern architecture is ugly! (Someone said that the key to understanding Prince Charles is his German roots...)

Personally, I think it's sill for Canada to have a hand-me-down monarchy.  I'm well-disposed to republican government in general, but we could at least have our own king! (It's mostly celebrity worship, of course.)

Soap on a rope

Can't think of much to say about soap.  On the subject of rope, when I was a little kid spending a year in Brighton, England, there was this weekly comic called The Beezer.  One of its running strips was "My Pal Ropey," about a kid and his pet rope.  You read that right--his rope had been animated by some East Indian magic spell and had a mind of its own, moving about by itself and often causing trouble for the kid.

I watched The Wonderful World of Disney a lot, and one story was "Hog Wild," about a family raising hogs on the western frontier.  At the story's climax this kid had to raise money to finance an operation for his crippled father, allowing him to walk again.  So he bet his whole wad that he could rope a hog! That's normally impossible, but his rope caught some hairs on the hog's back and he won.  That must be a nice thing to be able to do!

Remember skipping rope?  There were rhymes like "Old Black Joe from Mexico!  Hands up, stick 'em up, don't forget to pick 'em up!" (Not so PC!)

Broken bones

I don't recall ever suffering a broken bone.  I remember that my brother Donald fell out of a tree and broke his arm once. (I remember his expression immediately afterward.)

In ancient times medicine men, or whatever they were, had a thing called trepanning where they'd make a hole in your skull to make the bad spirits flow out and see if that would cure what ailed you.  I suffer headaches a lot, and sometimes wonder if trepanning would cure that.

I did sprain my ankle skiing once. That was the year we lived in Mississauga, and went out to Milton to ski.  I was never particularly interested in skiing, but my sister Margaret decided that I was going to take it up. (She was at that age where she thought she knew everything about what was best for me better than I did!)

After the sprain, which kept me off my feet for a week or more, she insisted that I ski the same slope again.  When I resisted, she said, twice as determined, "What do you do when you fall off a horse?  You get right back on it!" I still resent her for it--it wasn't something important like swimming--and I never ski today.

That's why I've never tried horseback riding. (Besides the expense, the safety issue, the combined responsibility of a vehicle and a pet, and the smell.) Because when I fell off they'd insist that I get on again, and I owe it to myself never again to let other people make the decision for me!

Being kept waiting

I remember once when I was doing my Ph.D. thesis and was having difficulties and had to speak to someone on my thesis committee, but nobody was available!  I had to do a lot of waiting for feedback at that time--in the eighteen months after I finished my first draft I waited a total of almost twelve months!  It was a difficult time for me. (I was lucky to pass.)

A few months ago I go a cellphone so that when I'm late I can phone home and they'll know to wait.  But I still haven't got into the habit of taking it with me!

I remember this Sesame Street sketch where Big Bird had a rendezvous one of the show's humans, but the latter was late. Big Bird started thinking, "Maybe he's tied up somewhere and a monster is tickling him!" Then he imagined, "Maybe he's in the hospital with a broken leg, and a monster will come along and start tickling him!" Fortunately, he turned up safe and sound.