Jonathon Delacour the heart of things

Nice to be back (kind of)

Having a break turned out to be such a good idea that I’ve decided to take a week off every three months or so, perhaps at the end of each quarter. Sitting down to start writing again, I realize that—true to my obsessive, driven nature—I’d set myself a somewhat ambitious program of watching, listening, reading, and swimming. I did all of that although, happily, not with the rigor I’d intended. Now it seems strange to be sitting down to write a weblog entry again. I feel as though I have to ease my way back into it by recounting the events of the week.

Despite the best efforts of the video store staff, late returns delayed my Sopranos viewing. Even so, after watching seven episodes of Series Three, I remain convinced that The Sopranos is the best American television series ever made. More on that later…

Keith Jarrett’s Sun Bear Concerts turned out to be beautiful beyond belief. I don’t feel qualified to write about Jarrett’s music since I’m not sure I “understand” it (in the way I understand film or photography). Rather my response is instinctive and emotional. But anyone who has enjoyed the Koln Concert or Solo Concerts (Bremen-Lausanne) couldn’t fail to find this six CD set deeply rewarding. I wasn’t surprised to find little agreement amongst the Amazon reviewers as to which is the standout concert — my favorite is whichever one I’m currently listening to (Sapporo, as I write this). Spending so much time with these Japanese concerts has encouraged me to revisit his other solo concerts: Bremen-Lausanne, Koln, Bregenz, Paris, Vienna, and La Scala. As the single sentence Sun Bear liner note puts it: “Think of your ears as eyes.”

I’m about halfway through Building Accessible Websites and it has exceeded all my expectations. Unlike Constructing Accessible Web Sites, which you dip into to find information about a particular topic, Joe Clark’s book is one you’ll want to read from start to finish. I’ve been thinking about writing a hands-on Web accessibility training course and Joe has inspired me to get on with it. It should be possible to teach Web developers in a day how to convert a typical unaccessible site to Level A compliance, as long as they receive a copy of Designing Accessible Websites as part of the course materials.

What else happened? My (external SCSI) CD burner died and I decided to replace it with an internal Yamaha CRW-F1 (favorably reviewed by Tom’s Hardware Guide). I’m happy installing RAM and PCI cards into my PC but I draw the line at IDE drives so I called on ImageScan, the people who maintain my PCs, for assistance. They installed the burner and it worked fine—until I removed Roxio’s Easy CD Creator and Direct CD (so that I could use the Nero software that came with the new drive). My CD reader and the new burner disappeared and nothing I tried would bring them back. As it happened, this is a known problem. Deleting two Registry entries and restarting brought back the missing drives. I knew there were problems with Easy CD Creator version 5 but I’d deliberately stayed with version 4 to avoid them. Silly me. Anyway Nero Burning ROM and InCD are vastly superior. As for Roxio, perhaps they should change their name to Poxio.

Finally, Reimi developed a black spot under her chin which, when I took her to the vet, turned out to be cat acne. (My mother’s response? “I’ve heard everything now!”) He gave her a shot and sent us home with some antibiotics. It’s been a trying experience getting her to take a quarter of a pill before each meal — particularly since Reimi’s predecessor, Pudding, would quite happily open her mouth and swallow whatever I dropped into it. After Reimi inflicted deep scratches on my hands and legs, my sister bought me a Pill Popper:

One small push on the plunger gently drops the pill in the back of your pet’s mouth - where it needs to be to make swallowing easy. A soft, pliable rubber tip protects against any irritation. Even pets that usually will take a pill when hidden in their favorite food, when sick and not eating, require a Pill Popper to get the medication they require.

One hand to prise open her jaws, another hand to manipulate the Pill Popper… which hand do I use to fend off her claws?

I settled on the following procedure: kneel down and trap her body and rear legs between my thighs, hold her front legs with my left hand, push the pill between her clenched teeth with my right hand then massage her throat to make her swallow. Tonight she only spat out the pill once before swallowing it. By the end of the week I hope she’ll take it without being constrained.

If the antibiotics don’t work, I have some more options: replace her plastic bowls with glass, ceramic, or steel bowls or see if there’s anything that might be stressing her. (“What could possibly stress her?” I ask. “Too much sleep? Too much to eat? Too many pats and cuddles?”) If, inexpicably, she is stressed, Bach Rescue Remedy might do the trick. (Can’t wait to hear what my mother says about that.)

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