short cuts

[incandescens]

Work on the day after a birthday is rarely fun. I did remember to bring in cakes for the office (bought at the overpriced hospital shop, since I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed at an ungodly hour and trot down to the supermarket before work, feh) so that's sorted.

Today's main annoyance was in discovering, several sorts/cuts/respreadsheeting through a large mass of data, that I'd made a mistake somewhere. (The clue came when I was checking the list of paediatric patients and noticed that several had apparently been treated in Geriatric Medicine.) In the end I couldn't work out exactly where I'd made my first mistake, and had to go back to the beginning and hack at it from there. Good that I caught the mistake; annoying that I made it in the first place.

I have too many ideas buzzing around. mjj, if you're reading this, what exactly is the status of a concubine in a household once the husband is dead (or otherwise gone) and rulership of the household moves onto the oldest son? I've got half an idea, but I think it's drawing off traditions of "possessing your father's concubines is possessing his power" which doesn't feel very Confucian. Or even pseudo-Confucian.

---

AdAstraGames says, "Well, the real fun was when Dane Jespersen and I brought Three Layer Grasshopper Jello Mold to the Vet school picnic. With real grasshoppers in the middle (opaque) layer."
AdAstraGames says, "People thought it was really neat to have tangy water chestnuts in a jello mold..."
AdAstraGames says, "Then we showed them the cookbook. :)"
mgellis says, "You haven't been invited back, have you?"

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not the one to ask, but no, possessing your father's second or third or fourth wife feels all wrong- scandalously wrong- from a Confucianist standpoint. Post mortem cuckolding your father is so not done. (Confucianist on crack of course thinks it's a great idea.) Mom is still around, naturally, and exerting her influence on you and I can't see *her* letting you bed your second mother or third mother either. I assume if the secondary wives have children, and especially sons, they're given some kind of dowager cottage to live in while son sets up his own domestic quarters? Shall ask those more up on this than I am.
-mjj

[incandescens]

Thanks. I'm just vaguely trying to think this through, and it struck me that it might be incredibly wrong, given the whole generational thing. (Of course, incredibly wrong could fit the theme ...)

[(Anonymous)]

(hideous thought) This isn't Kou, by any chance?
-mjj

[incandescens]

(coughs) I have this Really Bad Idea, you see, involving Nii's personality work having gone a bit further than he intended, and Kou sort of combining his old and new personalities and deciding that the resurrection project should be stopped but that conquering the world sounds like an excellent idea, and . . . Just idly batting thoughts against each other at the moment, you understand.