Yesterday, when the computer crashed, I was writing about another Palm program that I had found--the Palm version of the Oblique Strategies, the card deck depicting a series of aphorisms/creative suggestions by Brian Eno and his friend Peter Schmidt. (Examples: "Retrace Your Steps;" "Do Something Boring;" "It Is Simply a Matter of Work")

I'm not a particular fan of Eno's music, but his autobiographical book, A Year, With Swollen Appendices, is one of my favorite books. I ran across it accidentally in a bookstore, and was thereafter compelled to go find information on the Oblique Strategies, which he mentioned in the book.

There are several online versions of the Strategies, but I didn't know there was a Palm version until today.

I was in the Franklin Covey store a few weeks ago and noticed a cool item--a tray that holds 3x5 cards with a pen in the top, and when you remove the pen, a light comes on that illuminates the cards in the tray. It's meant to put on a bedside table, to record nighttime thoughts and dreams.

I have a lighted pen, but in actual use it doesn't work very well--the lighted pen tip only illuminates the tiny area around the pen, and so you can really only see the word you're writing. Using a penlight and a regular pen is a little more effective, but more disruptive: I don't want to wake up all the way when I wake with a dream in my head, I only want to wake up enough to jot down a note or two.

So I decided I wanted to buy the Nite Note thing, and went back to the Franklin store yesterday to get it, and the only one they had was the display model. I asked if they had any more, and they didn't, so I asked if I could get a discount if I bought the display one, since everyone had been playing with it, and I got 20% off, which was cool.

Later:

We spent the day with my family today, which was nice. Bob left mid-afternoon to go visit a friend, and I stayed for supper, getting home around 8:00. A couple of memorable events: my niece, who is going to graduate from high school this spring, has a new tattoo--a dragon coiling up her ankle, belching red flame. The first tattoo in the family, I believe. I wished I had taken the camera with me; I had thought of it briefly that morning, but forgot by the time I left.

And me telling the story of the day we found out I didn't have breast cancer--someone mentioned Joe's Crab Shack, and I said, "That was where we went to eat after we left the hospital the day we found out I didn't have cancer, and then we saw Return of the Mummy. That was a happy, fun day."

My brother, who isn't a big fan of either going out to eat or going to movies, said, "What was fun about it?"

Bob turned to him and said, holding up his thumb as if he was going to count, "Well, first, that she didn't have cancer . . ."