So I’m sitting at my son’s dining room table using the local very very weak wifi to write an entry.

Hopefully at some point I will poke around in my son’s computer and see if I can hook up to his wifi, but in the meantime I think this is one of those city wide dealies so thank goodness for that.

Spent yesterday in airports and airplanes with lovely wife. Eileen and I enjoy traveling together. It truly gives us a chance to spend time together.  The seats in the airplane seemed to not be as constricting as I remembered so that was nice. People were a bit grumpy and didn’t tend to smile back at me so much. This made me feel at home since that’s often how people react to me in Holland. 

I read the first 108 pages of David Foster Wallace’s first novel, “The Broom of the System.” Very distracting so that was helpful. Also read the D.H. Lawrence short story, “England my England.” Still thinking about this one. Lawrence is steeped in a sort of odd Christianity. I picked this story because I am planning to go to England next month and am trying to direct my reading a bit that way.

In the middle of the last paragraph my son and I cracked his wireless code and I am now working through his wireless router. Cool beans. Eileen has also connected her Acer to my son’s network. Cool.

So.. England, My England:

The main character, Eggbert had 

“… not been brought up to come to grips with anything, and he thought it would do.”

Uh ho, I related to this. But the guy is obviously a loser. But then so is his wife, Winifred. They form a sort of odd Adam and Eve living in a beautiful idyllic setting bequeathed to them by Winifred’s god-like father.

My grandson is alternating playing Beethoven’s Fur Elise and Joyful joyful on the piano as I write this entry.

I like this quote from D.H.Lawrence about Egbert, Winifred and the concept of money:

“Money became, alas, a word like a firebrand between them, setting them both aflame with anger. But that is because we must talk in symbols.”

 I also really like reading on Mobipocket because it allows all sorts of highlight, bookmarking and notes…..  It fits me quite a bit.  Since I mark up my books: underlining and making a note of the page numbers and write notes in the back. 

I know I’m rambling but that might be nature of being uprooted and off on a vacation.

It was very interesting to have left the dieing body of my own father and read these words about the fathe rin the D. H. Lawrence short story:

Let the psycho-analyst talk about father complex. It is just a word invented. Here was a man who had kept alive the old red flame of fatherhood, fatherhood that had even the right to sacrifice the child to God, like Isaac. Fatherhood that had life-and-death authority over the children: a great natural power. And till his children could be brought under some other great authority as girls; or could arrive at manhood and become themselves centres of the same power, continuing the same male mystery as men; until such time, willy-nilly, Godfrey Marshall would keep his children.

Godfrey Marshall is the father in the story.

Anyway, I think both of the men (Godfrey the father and Eggbert the husband) represent the old England which is left in the dust by the upcoming WWI. Hence the title. 

So we’re off in a bit to see “Monsters vs. Aliens” with the kids. I received a call from the Hospice nurse that my father is continuing to fail physically. They are upping the morphine a bit due to his pain.

These things are so difficult because he could die momentarily or last for days or weeks. I spoke with my brother and we agreed, I think, to continue on our daily routines until Dad actually dies. Then we will reassess Mom’s needs at that moment. Dad will be cremated so I am only concerned that Mom get an opportunity to say goodby to Dad’s body.

I think most of the rest of the family, myself included, can look over our interaction with my Dad and feel a sense of having said goodby without another one. 

Of course if I get back and he is still alive I will visit his body. But I’m pretty sure he is more inside Mom and me than that body.

Anyway, back to trying to get my mind of stuff in Holland (as my lovely daughterinlaw just said). I will blog if I have time. 

Interspersing things that make it more interesting. heh.