Change of subject.

Today, we are dealing with a true late-life issue: signing the contract and organizing the payment for our interment arrangements. Who knew that getting ourselves buried would cost ten thousand frickin' dollars? I sincerely hope that includes the cremation.

As veterans, we are entitled to be planted in the National Military Cemetery in Ottawa. No, it's not our version of Arlington; Canada doesn't roll that way. Almost all our war dead lie overseas, as it is the British tradition (which we share) to bury fallen soldiers where they died. Cheaper. (You think I'm kidding? I'm not.)

It's also way beyond time I finished typing out our wills and power-of-attorney documents. We hired a lawyer in Ottawa, but he (or his assistant) made an insultingly bad job of it and, when I complained, fired us as clients. So I have their draft, with its crap language and weirdly old-fashioned provisions -- who nowadays cuts a relative out of the will because their parents were not married? Half Quebec would be in probate court on that rule alone.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, I am learning to type with gloves on. They are special open-fingertip gloves made of magic fabric for people with Raynaud's Syndrome, and I'm desperately hoping they work because productivity on the book project is currently crap. It's hard enough to copy-edit a great thumping book about the war in Afghanistan that seems to be written entirely in the passive voice; doing it with numb fingers is just Too Flipping Much.