Well here it is Saturday and the rain came in as predicted, although later in the day, maybe early afternoon. I woke up around 3-4 and red the rest of "The Violinist's Thumb" which I'd started on quite a while back. It's OK, although it has some of what I'll call intentional errors for the sake of sensationalism.
First, Jane Austen did not, according to all the other sources I looked at, die of adult chickenpox. It's kind of believable to me because I had it and got pretty sick and might have been sicker if I hadn't been given some Acyclovir and had a landlady who was fine with my staying in bed when I wasn't having some of the excellent chicken soup she'd made just for me. She'd been a nurse before/during (and I guess after) WWII and when I wasn't sleeping I read a lot of her old nursing books from the 1930s. They were from the pre-antibiotic era (and also before a lot of the vaccinations we have now) and a lot of the care involved keeping the patient as comfortable as possible until they died or got better. There were lots of recipes for sorts or slurries that could be gotten into them for nutriment, which consistently had whiskey as a major ingredient.
Second was the matter of Evelyn Einstein. She was either a bastard child of Albert or an adopted child of Albert's son I think it was, an according to the author was both mentally retarded and destitute. I felt sorry for the old gal and looked her up, and according to Wikipedia, had not only a college degree but worked at a number of jobs you need connections to get. Yes, she was destitute for a while after her divorce, which is almost required in the US. She lived in her car and dumpster-dived. This is an esteemed American tradition. But she got back onto her feet and when she died was "worth" about $1 million, thus making her, in the American value system, a good person.
It's good and wet, and cold, with freeze warnings overnight. No busking this weekend.
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