flemmings | (no subject)

One must move to move,of course, but an achy joint day might not be the best time to wash my stairs, given that the elbows wouldn't grease. But they're slightly cleaner than before, and I wasn't up for the task of vacuuming the downstairs and washing the kitchen floor. Also hung up my orange shirt for September's Every Child Counts, only a third of the way through, and wasn't that an undertaking. I can't reach the porch hooks without a step stool and I was fine in June hanging up my Pride flag on its rod but today, holding a shirt on a hanger, I was all wibble wobble I'm-going-to-fall. I hope that was just fallout from yesterday's gardening, sweeping a bag full of linden whatevers from the front walk, because bending down repetitively stiffens the hamstrings something chronic. But otherwise I must believe I've actually lost strength in my legs.

Did a laundry, mended the strap on one of my shopping bags, and otherwise sat on the sofa with grateful beanbags warming my poor poor lumbar area and read M. Didius Falco in Germany. Made the mistake of looking up Varus' legions which led me down the rabbit hole of early imperial Roman politics which led to the usual revulsion that Rome has always induced in me ever since my mother gave me I, Claudius to read at an early age. (Really, what was she thinking of?) Horrible horrible people: almost worse than imperial China which lord knows is bad enough. I never could understand why people wanted to be emperor of either, or wanted their sons to be, if female. Had a prof in uni for Drama to 1642 who was entranced by Marlowe's Tamburlaine and besotted by the speech that ends 'The sweet fulfillment of an earthly crown.' And couldn't for the life of him understand the jaded looks his students gave him as he warbled on. I ventured to suggest that we'd had sufficient experience of power-hungry rulers in recent history to not think much of the breed. Our prof, who'd actually lived through the war, thought that was piffle. Ah well. Some people have the power virus and some, luckily, don't.

My sister had her hip replacement scheduled to just before Christmas, then had it rescheduled to Sept 25 and now has had it sudenly rescheduled to this coming Friday. Which as she says is good to get it over with, and she has her church friends to rely on, but there's such a thing as kokoro no junbi/ being in the right mindset, which no doctor and especially no surgeon has ever heard of.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When R and I visited Canterbury, we went to the museum and saw exhibits detailing the place during the Roman period and after, and the latter really felt like a fall; the mud huts scrambled against decaying walls of what was once a city, the desolation of it, the loss of letters and learning. I have a lot of time for the Romans even though they were brutal and cruel, possibly because many tribes were brutal and cruel, they were just smart as well. As to power hungry rulers, humanity seems to love them, even now. :-(

Somehow I'd pictured the half-Romanized native brits going on living in the marble buildings as they did in France. Letters certainly lived on there, mainly through the church of course. But the French churchmen could turn out a nice amorous poem if so minded, as quoted by Helen Waddell in The Wandering Scholars. Without translation, of course.

Maybe that was the case more generally across the land. Re Canterbury, my information is based on depictions at the museum, I guess it's possible that they overstate the case for the sake of contrast!

Maybe they overstated, but of course the lower orders under the Romans weren't living in marble either. Wooden shanties and lucky to get them.