Happy birthday
So, I’m 33 now – my birthday was last Friday.
Anne arranged a surprise birthday party in the evening, which was nice – various friends were round, we ate dinner, drank wine, chatted and caught up.
The children are getting better, although both still have nasty coughs. And tomorrow, we’re off to see Anne’s parents for her father’s 70th birthday party at the weekend. We’re going a few days early to help get things organised. And we’re staying at my parents’ house (although my parents are in New Zealand!), so that should be nice.
Which all means that there’s unlikely to be an update to the blog for a week or so. Although that’s no surprise – the past couple of weeks haven’t exactly been overflowing with posts, either! I just haven’t had the energy 
pax et bonum
Track with co.mments
Track with del.icio.usSmall things
Last weekend, we spent time with some friends who are having serious problems. We can try to help, spend time, talk things through, but ultimately we’re powerless and can only look on. Dealing with other people’s problems is hard – especially when your own emotions are involved.
My daughter (7 months old) was running a temperature of 102 degrees F for most of the weekend, and she’s now developed a chest infection and is on antibiotics. The real problem is that the infection won’t let her eat properly or sleep for long. So Anne and I aren’t getting proper sleep.
Unlike some times in my life, there’s nothing huge for me to deal with. Just relatively small things that make it harder to deal with everything else. Things over which I have no control. Being part of something bigger than myself is essential at times like this – family, community, relationships to sustain and encourage me.
pax et bonum
Meat
Meat eating is a controversial thing these days, it seems. Vegetarians and vegans seek the moral high ground over both practical issues of welfare and ethical issues of raising animals for meat. Meat is even criticised as inefficient – it is often said that one can grow far more more soy protein per acre than one can raise as beef. However we might argue the ethical point (not something I want to address right now), the other two points are spurious.
Marrow
After my little rant about Greg Bear’s Anvil of Stars last week, I though perhaps that I should write a little something about the next book I read – Marrow, by Robert Reed. This is another one of those books dealing with huge scales of time and space. The plot is interesting, with several changes; these aren’t trick endings but more a sense of turning a corner and suddenly seeing wider horizons.
However, here, even though the characters are deeply flawed and victory is a more slippery concept than in Bear’s novel, there is a notably different tone. There is no humanist triumphalism, no sense of manifest destiny, but the tone is somehow less negative and hopeless than Bear’s.
I’ve not read anything by this author previously, so I don’t know whether this is typical, but I will certainly be keeping my eyes open for him in the future!
pax et bonum
