fever dreams

My spam-of-the-day was an e-mail with the subject header: "I AM YOUR SLAVE (FREE)" from someone I don't know. I delete obvious spams without opening the messages. Over the past years, I've gone through several stages with my attitude towards e-mail spam. First irritation. Then (as my spam volume increased) outrage and dogged attempts to report the spammers, get my e-mail address taken off lists. I'd spend hours working on elaborate filter systems which never really worked. Now I'm back to mild irritation again and find that in the long run, it's just easier to delete spam as soon as it comes in.

Still sick, had a fever yesterday. This cold has gotten me a bit down since it's lasted so long. I'm at the stage where every time I cough, it feels like someone's kicking me in the chest with cleat boots. I spent most of yesterday sleeping. Brief moments of Nyquil-hazed consciousness were spent playing my harp or reading (I just finished Gael Baudino's Strands of Starlight).

Did I mention that I love my harp? I've had Gwyneth Paltrow for about a year and a half now. One of her strings seems to have gone dead. I've asked the people on Harplist for advice; most advise me to just go ahead and change the string. Some say they change their strings on an annual basis; others say they just change them when they break (or go dead).



Today's photos are more from my "family photo CD" project. At first I had figured that these photos were taken when my mother left Japan to come to Canada to marry my Dad. But Dad says that Mom came here on a Vicount turboprop plane via Alaska, with one stop in the Aleutian Islands for refuelling (and Mom had always told me that she first met Dad in the airport).

Neither of us can figure out what was happening in these photos, especially since another photo in the group was obviously taken from the ship, looking down at friends or family waving good-bye. Maybe these photos were taken by one of my mother's friends and sent to her later. Curious about the ship name "Orsova" in one of the pictures, I did some research on the Web. According to this page of P&O post-war liners, the Orsovo was an Orient lines trans-pacific liner making crossings between Sydney & Vancouver & then onto San Francisco. "She then became part of the merged Peninsular & Oriental shipping line and continued in service until†1974 upon which she was broken up."

More than anything, going through these old family albums is a fascinating experience, each page of photos heavy with untold stories.

Today's Poll:

Have you ever gotten seasick?