I didn't turn on the ceiling fan in the living room. My mother did so that she would have a breeze while she did her WiiFit (and Wii Active) exercise. She left it on so that I could have the air circulation while I worked out, mostly running and step aerobics with the new 12-pound dumbbells. I wouldn't have turned it on; I think it's too cold right now to support that, and truth be told, I kind of like coming out of my exercise sessions sweat-drenched. I know it makes me less pleasant to be around while I'm working out, but nobody has reason to be particularly close to then anyway, and it justifies the hot shower I take afterwards very well.
Anyway, at the end of a running segment I staggered over to the kitchen to catch my breath and to eat a banana. My mother asked, ``If you're done exercising, could you turn off the ceiling fan?'' I pointed out that I wasn't done exercising, just catching my breath, but sure, I'd turn it off. The moment I said this my father looked up from his paper and said, ``If you're done with your exercise, by the way, could you turn the ceiling fan down or maybe off?'' ... I agreed that I certainly could as soon as I was done exercising. My mother said there was an echo in here. I think my father's building up an immunity to his hearing aid.
While it's too cold, for my tastes, for the ceiling fan it has also managed to drop to being cold enough to justify turning the fireplace on, to the great satisfaction of the cats. Truth be told it's possible the fireplace has been on earlier this season and I've missed it, because my mother has been putting her new MacBook Pro on the floor near the fireplace and when it goes into sleep mode it does the swirling-auroral-lights thing, which to the corner of my eye looks like the fireplace when that's turned on. It's possible I've been mistaking fire for the laptop and vice-versa for weeks now.
Trivia: The full name of the Battleship Potemkin was the Kniaz Potemkin Tavritchesky, and it had been under commission for only a year at the time of the mutiny. Source: Mutiny: A History of Naval Insurrection, Leonard F Guttridge.
Currently Reading: The Influence Of Sea Power Upon History, 1660 - 1783, Alfred Thayer Mahan.