So the day started with my having to despeckle and send one document and then translate another, along with its graphics, despeckle the resulting oeuvre and send it off, too.

It's done.

And what is particularly gratifying to me is that the document that required soup-to-nuts treatment today weighed in at over 4,000 target words. I conclude, therefore (since I am not dragging myself around the house) that I must certainly be feeling my Wheaties!

I feel good, especially now that I've been relieved of this time pressure.

I was a little bummed that CBS decided to roll with repeats last night of NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans. Galina said it had something to do with being pre-empted, but the only thing I could think of that might do that was coverage of the ice storm that has had the area in its grip over the past couple of days. (Okay, it's not exactly Nome in December, but Houstonians are not exactly familiar with what is necessary to drive on even the slightest layer of ice on the road.)

Scans tomorrow. Go me.

Cheers...

...but I am still alive and kicking.

Today was a good day.

In filling out a survey about memorization, one question asks, "What's one problem you hope to address by improving your memory?"

My response:

They say that if a shark stops swimming, it dies. All my life, I've felt that if I stop learning, I would mentally "die," an idea that became more acute after my mother (a college graduate with masters degrees, multilingual, who played a mean piano) developed Alzheimer's and eventually died.

Paraphrasing Tennyson, it is my wish to sail as far as I can in what remains to me in this lifetime. It may be that the gulfs will capsize me, and though much has been taken, much abides, and despite having been made weak by time and fate and not being as strong as I once was, I will not cease to strive, to seek, to find... and not to yield! For me, having an improved memory will improve both my outer life and my inner life.

Sorry to get all literary on you, but there it is.

Cheers...

I hope to do better tomorrow.

Cheers...

Wow—2018! Time has put a real dent in the twenty-first century, hasn't it?

We had what my parents would've called a "party" last night. (Actually, it was a party, but not like the ones to which I remember my parents dragging me when I was a child—people there seemed to be having such a grand time, but I digress...)

Things were going along fairly well but I started feeling puny around 1 am, so I excused myself and went upstairs. During the half hour leading up to 1 am, folks were watching a recorded Russian New Year's program on YouTube called Голубой огонек (translated as Little Blue Light by the producers), which started out okay (for me), but then I noticed just how well the cameras were picking up all of the makeup on the performers' faces and how the cameras kept cutting to little groups of people who were clinking champagne glasses and (in my opinion) acting at having a good time.

I better stop before I burst out in a salvo of "Bah, humbug!"

I experienced today what must have occurred once last month, which consisted of religiously making sure I hadn't eaten anything for two hours and then, upon achieving that milestone, waiting one more hour before eating anything. What was wrong with the picture was not taking my cancer meds between the two-hour "before" period and one-hour "after" slot.

After waking from a nap at around 4:20 pm, I frankly could not remember if I had taken the cancer meds.

No, that's not it. I was pretty sure I hadn't, but how could I be sure? I certainly didn't want to miss a dose, but I absolutely didn't want to take a double dose, so I emptied the bottle on a clean towel and counted the number of doses left. It turned out I hadn't yet taken today's meds, so I'm taking them today, in a few minutes, after a two-hour "fast" (I must confess it is hard to not nibble at leftovers in the fridge).

Now, one might wonder how someone who engages in memory exercises might forget something like this? Easy.

After this happened last month, I should have implemented a little protocol that would force me to notice my taking my meds, but I didn't follow through. That ends today.

Anyway, I'm off to take meds and catch up on the day, which is largely gone.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Cheers...

Wow, what a day this has been.

Galina agreed to help out a friend who needed to be dropped off at a hospital (not MD Anderson) at the Texas Medical Center this morning and prevailed upon me to postpone picking up my meds until today, but we did not realize until last night that our good deed would entail a 5:45 am wakeup for me. I dropped off our friend and found myself orbiting MDA at around 7:30 am.

It turned out the MDA pharmacy opens at 9 am.

Had I been driving Natalie's Honda, I would have gone to ground in a coffee shop until 9, somewhere, but Galina had agreed to drive our go-to handyman Victor to Natalie's house to effect some repairs, and since Galina does not drive a stick (or claims not to, as our first car was a manual, which she drove perfectly well), I ended up driving back to Seabrook, swapping cars, and then heading back to MD Anderson.

When I stopped to get gas, I noticed one tire was perilously low, but when I pulled up to the air pump, a sign informed me it was out of order. The second air pump I stopped at had had its quarter slot jammed up with something, and a third was simply missing the valve hardware at the end of the hose. I considered buying a can of tire inflator, but the instructions said the contents had to be at 60°F or higher to be effective, and the gas station office was cold, so that was a no-go.

So I ended up driving to MDA at low speed, and I made it. I got my meds, found a gas station with a functioning air hose, and headed on home.

Galina got back shortly after 8 pm. A bouquet of roses, candy, and shrimp gumbo greeted her.

A heck of a way to spend one's 41st wedding anniversary, but there you have it.

Cheers...

I've found some additional stories in my LJ tappings that completely blast the idea of titling a book of such tales "a baker's dozen" (unless we wish to invoke the rule of "there are three types of people in the world: those who understand mathematical concepts, and those that don't").

So right now, I'm at nearly 24,000 words (93 pages) in my book of short-short stories.

In other news, assignments received through December 18 suggested the month would be a genuine, 24-carat stinker, invoice-wise, but work that has arrived (and been completed) during the past five days has salvaged things to the point of making me breathe easier. It won't be a stellar month, but then again, 2017 hasn't been a year for stellar months of translation work.

Apparently, the folks on the Russian side of the equation are trying to pump things out before their holiday season kicks in for about a week starting with the New Year.

I'll not complain. Bring it on!

Cheers...

Not much to report.

One job left on the plate, which involves a bunch of OCR before I can start translating.

All the Christmas stuff has been put on display, and Galina and I have agreed that we've managed to spend enough money to consider various birthday, Christmas, and anniversary presents paid for and exchanged.

Dunno about that. :)

Cheers...

...at the end of the tunnel. Pretty sure it's not a train headlight.

I'm within 500 words or so of finishing the 13,000 word job received a little while ago. More work has come in since then, so it's not like I'll be twiddling my thumbs over the weekend.

Wait...

Originator sends a document

1. having the same name as the previous version of the document
2. with page margins of less than 0.5 inches
3. with a text size of less than 10 points
4. with tables where some columns are just wide enough to accommodate abbreviations that must be expanded into English to make any sense to the client

Life doesn't get much better than this.

Cheers...