Just after the Pacific Time Zone finished watching Jerry's last show, Frankie passed on. (Was He watching, too?) This morning I got the news via the same medium whereby I learned of Princess Diana's demise: checking CNN's web site (which says "...He holds an unrivaled record of longevity on Billboard charts, where a Sinatra song was a fixture every week from 1955 to 1995" - which sounds a little unreasonable to me). So far what media I've heard has been honoring the request Sarah Vowell made on the great "Sinatra" This American Life program: "Ix-nay on the 'My Way'!" (Follow the link and you can access that show in RealAudio c/o KCRW. If you're a fan, you'll enjoy it.) She says "My Way" has for whatever reasons become His default song, and her message was to Please Resist That Temptation, when doing the inevitable tribute - there are so many better tunes. <0>

Had to commiserate with G & D over the phone - when we lived in the big old house together, part of that bonding experience was sitting around the fireplace in the living room. We all had stereo stuff in our rooms upstairs, but the only music downstairs was D's old cast-off record player, stocked with a bunch of His LPs she'd received from somewhere. I discovered these with glee, and I played them whenever we gathered by the hearth. Frankie has provided some portion of our mutual soundtrack ever since those days. (We had a jolly time with a tape of the Chairmen's a few years back on a DC-Philadelphia road trip.) During the call D asked that I make her a "Farewell Ol-Blue Eyes" tape - that'll be fun. She thinks it spooky that I was actually listening to one of His records ("In The Wee Small Hours") when He died.

Yesterday's entry started life with the title "Apathy", but then I removed the big paragraph of work-kvetching and the only apathy left was in that musical lyric at the end. Now I try again, with the tiresome programming details omitted... I've so little ambition, initiative, energy - five years ago, ten years ago, I had (or could at least generate some) enthusiasm for this software development stuff (and the systems I was working on then were a lot less interesting). So the result of an accurate, honest, critical assessment is - I just don't care, I'm burned out. If a pink slip appeared I'd miss the high-speed connection and the check, but that's about all - my attitude's so bad I feel like just doing nothing more until they tell me to leave <1>. That might be a while, since there's only mild pressure to produce results: nobody's barging in demanding status of what I'm up to, so it seems like I could coast for months. Most everyone on this project works for another company, which just lost their contract recompete - hence all those people <2> now have the choice of staying on and working for a different company (with benefits not as good) or finding a new job on the outside (theoretically an easy task here in Silicon Valley). So they don't care either - the whole climate's probably not all that different from a lot of government jobs right now - and my inner Wally is delighted with exploiting the situation.

Yesterday O called - a cryptic postcard had arrived at his house; naturally his first thought was of me - imagine his dismay when I knew nothing about it <3>. The message was possibly a Shakespeare quote; I should've written it down because all I remember is the word "confabulator", possible definitions for which we bandied about. Mine was an agent which removed the fabulous from something. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that all confabulate meant was to "talk casually, chat". One dictionary even uses this term for the definition: "pow-wow".

I'm enjoying the first cherries of the season - dee-lisch! Another happy find at the super market is Häagen-Dazs "Limited Edition" Pistachio ice cream. This is the real thing, not the bogus pistachio-almond so common now - and they're generous with the nuts.