It’s still a little stiff, but I’m the one who can loosen a keyboard right up. Bigtime. And reversing buttons on the mouse made things behave sanely. I hate trying to drag anything by curling my thumb under my hand to push and hold a stupid button. Whoever thought of that must have been left-handed. Now that drag and drop is leftward, I can push and hold with it completely out from under my palm. That helps.

insert, home, pg up, down, end, and delete are all in a little cluster above backspace. Actually more convenient. And I’ve got the blue FN (function) buttons as alternates, but I can’t read those even with contacts AND glasses. Getting old-er is a pita. I’m sure there’s something useful in that lot.

Meanwhile we’re cleaning up the place. We have a beautiful waterlily table that’s been completely obscured with ‘stuff’ and Jane’s gotten it to where we hope there will be less ‘stuff’ on it. I’m sure we’ll see the prints of little kitteh paws as soon as the ‘children’ discover it’s a highway between their separate territories.

Haven’t heard from OSG since the con. She’s off doing something interesting, I hope.

And I’m mostly over the crud, except a little stuffiness and night-time cough. That’s a relief.

Commentary on the figure skating furor: I understand Plushie’s complaint but I wish he had put it in a more diplomatic manner. I was glad that Lysacek didn’t escalate it. Plushy was arguing for the old judging system, which would have counted his quad higher, but since he made errors and Lysacek actually made fewer, he still might not have won: a great deal would have rested with the taste of the judges. I prefer the ‘new’ system, which I’ve explained at some length, in which the judges have some discretion on G.of E., (grade of execution) of an element, but in which the judges must also judge whether an element has actually been performed. When skaters train, they are required, (and always have been) to fully complete, say, 3 turns about for a spin to count at all in their passing their requisite tests. I can do two rotations. I can’t do 3. I can’t pass a test on the spin until I can do 3. That’s the law all US skaters train by—but that rule has been apparently thrown out during the ‘old system’ judging, in which nobody was counting once you were a high test skater on a program. Well, in my way of thinking, a spin is a spin, but not when it’s scanted.

And here’s where I don’t ‘get’ what Galina’s done with Weir. You have tens of thousands of songs to pick from; you KNOW that if you perform certain moves after the halfway point of your program you score higher. Plushenko—same deal. You put all your high-score moves in first, reach the halfway point and have nothing in the tank as the program goes for its conclusion. It’s the job of the highly paid choreographer and coach to come up with a program that gives the skater the music and rhythm he/she needs to complete a spin—ie, there need to be a certain number of beats to let the skater finish each element without being rushed on to the next. So pick the music to fit the program—if you have to have the guy skating to Gilligan’s Island! If you don’t let him finish, his spin will be downgraded, and he will lose points hand over fist. This is where skaters bleed to death from small cuts.

There was a beautiful pair of skaters at the Spokane Nationals—you just wanted to scream in indignation, because on every single element, the music rushed them on. They gave up points on every spin —2.9 spin revolutions, counted as 2. Many, many times. 2.9 seconds on the spiral. Downgraded a full point. That’s what I mean bleeding from small cuts. This is not rocket science. And choreographers who have been pooh-poohing the new system and still composing as if they could make up their own rules—are collecting big money and killing their skaters.