Phone

The land line at Chez Dinh is back up and working. Thong wanted to replace one run on Wednesday. I, having taken the day off to recover from the elections, wanted to run downtown and shop. Anyway, in the late afternoon, after I ran out to Menards for some clips, we started. He'd separated one of the two extension ladders and was stringing 5e network cable around the outside of the house where the phone line went. At some point, he asked if he could cut the two wires coming from the sunroom, and like an idiot, I said yes. Clip and there went the network cable... I just finished putting it back into the wall, all hooked up but untested.

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Obit & more

A Man of Many Words, David Shulman Dies at 91
BY DOUGLAS MARTIN

David Shulman, a self-described Sherlock Holmes of Americanisms who dug through obscure, often crumbling publications to hunt down the first use of thousands of words, died on Oct. 30 at Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn. He was 91 and lived in Brooklyn.

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Organically Grown
By JONATHAN REYNOLDS

"When Fanny Singer was an infant, her baby food was pureed duck confit and poached pears. When she was teething, her mother gave her quail bones to gnaw (don't try this at home), and she was often sent to high school with choices of salad dressing, like anchovy and red-wine vinaigrette. "

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A separate magazine on food with some truly horrible, "artsy" photographs of kitchens avec barnyard animals. Perhaps I'm missing the "We who are about to be cooked" sensibility because I grew up on a farm. Maybe it's just that I don't live in New York.

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Oh, and Holiday Movies

Thong's idea of a sandwich

Yesterday, whilst I was at the French Meadow with Laura Jean and David, I bought a loaf of their sourdough white bread. In paper. Without a bag.

Thong, who likes the crust, complained that I didn't bring a bag for for it.

This morning, after carving off some of the crust yesterday, he carved it all off to make a sandwich. I now have a round dome of nekkid bread sitting in the kitchen.

The closet

I've emptied most of the closet in the office. It's sitting in garbage bags by the door. I've got to vacuum it out and sort through four containers of misc computer parts, boards, motherboards, etc. I'm throwing out the original chip to the first computer I ever bought, a KayPro II. I was going to through out its user manual, but then I relented. I did through the (nonworking) KayPro II out quite some time ago. I'm debating about the black Royal typewriter. I suspect it's well past time to throw it too. I've been using the baby air compressor for the nail gun to blow -- or redistribute the dust.

I've put a coat of orange shellac on the nekkid board shelves from the closet. I was going to go out for dinner with Thong, but he ran out to Quang's for take out.