Thoughts

Marshall lost a tooth earlier this month. It was probably his last baby tooth. The Tooth Fairy is sad.

It’s utterly ridiculous that “sanguine” means “optimistic” and also “bloody/bloodthirsty.” If, for example, your coworker said he was feeling sanguine about an upcoming meeting, would that mean he was feeling good about it or planning a massacre? You’d like to be certain about something like that, right?

I’m irritated to find that my given name has become a slang term for a disagreeable woman. I mean, I am a disagreeable woman, but not in the way the word suggests.

Joe Hill recently tweeted, “I learned from crosswords that the maddening blanks in one’s life can be filled in. It requires patience, humor, a willingness to consider skewed possibilities . . . and the humility to ask for help if you need it. Often that’s all you need to puzzle things out: on & off the page.” I liked the sentiment, so I didn’t point out that it’s somebody’s job to make sure that the puzzles are solvable.

I was relieved to read online recently that it’s perfectly normal to read a book and then completely forget it. In fact, the article said that unless you deliberately read a text multiple times, odds are that it will disappear almost entirely from your head. I would tell you more about it, except I’ve already forgotten the rest, of course.

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Pandora Redux

I finished a book last night. It was my 20th book of 2019. I am still behind on my reading goal for the year, but I think I’ve gained some ground. If I keep up my current pace of reading, I might be able to catch up by the end of the year.

The Pandora Box by Christopher Golden; Grade: B-

An archaeological team on an underground dig discovers a hidden room containing an ancient jar. Inscriptions in and around the room suggest that the jar is the origin of the Pandora myth. Believing that the jar could contain a disease (or worse, some sort of paranormal malice), a special team is dispatched to deal with the threat (i.e., make sure the jar ends up in their hands and not the “wrong” hands). As the wrong hands (jihadis armed to the teeth) try to take the prize from the outside, something horrific is happening on the inside, and there is no way out.

I wanted to like this book, and I did initially. It had a bold start. The author created a tense, dark atmosphere and some interesting, likeable characters, and that was enough for the story to coast on for a time. But it wasn’t quite enough to see it to the end. The story got bogged down in violence and grossness, and with nowhere for its characters to go, deus ex machina was called upon to bring it to a close.

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That’s a Lot of Bubbles!

Our kids don’t take baths often, because the drain of the bathtub is messed up and we’re holding off fixing it until we redo that entire bathroom. So the kids usually take showers, which are quicker and easier for everyone involved. But, every once in a while, they need a good soak, so their dad prepares a bath. I’m in favor of this, even though I know it will go wrong somehow, usually in the form of something getting damaged by the gallons of water that inevitably end up getting propelled out of the tub.

Yesterday, Livia got her long-awaited and much-needed soak. Her father had turned it into a bubble bath by adding some soap to the water, and she was delighted. I was in my office working, but my door was open, and I could hear the whole exciting event. There was a lot of splashing and talking, including some yelling when her father discovered how much water was already on the floor.

After a while, I heard Livia call to her brother. “Look how many bubbles I have, Marshall!”

“Whoa!” responded Marshall, after viewing the soapy marvel.

In my office, I was thinking to myself, “This can’t be good.”

A few minutes later, their dad returned the bathroom. “Oh my God! How did you get so many bubbles? What did you do? Did you add more soap? HOW MUCH SOAP DID YOU ADD?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.

“Take a guess. One squirt? Ten squirts?”

“Um, fifteen?” she answered

I did not see how many bubbles were in the bathtub, because I was too busy laughing in my office. Bath time was soon over after that, and the tub drained. But, a little while later, my husband came into my office and said, “I don’t want you to be alarmed when you go downstairs . . .” So of course I went downstairs so that I could be alarmed, and I brought my camera so that I could take pictures, which I will not share, because you do not want to see pictures of the inside of the toilet.

Yes, the alarming thing was the toilet, which was filled with soap bubbles–a mountainous island of bubbles floating in the toilet sea. Apparently there were so many bubbles in the waste pipe that they had backed up into the toilet. Because, like I said, baths always goes wrong somehow.

At least this time it was amusing!

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I DARE You

The most exciting potential prize of the recent limerick contest (aside from the free trip to England) was a full set of the Dictionary of American Regional English. I was hoping to get one. Alas, I did not.

But my husband surprised me with a consolation prize.

Wow! It’s the first volume of the DARE! My husband was disappointed by the condition of the book (it had more external wear and tear than the online book seller had disclosed), but it was in good shape inside. We decided to keep it.

Just to give you a taste of what’s in there, here are three of the entries (definitions slightly paraphrased by me).

Amish preaching soup: a bean soup that the Amish eat after or between religious services (from Amish areas, such as OH, PA, etc.)

Burnt-tail jinny: will-o’-the-wisp, “the feminine mate or counterpart of Jack-o’-Lantern” (from South Carolina)

cootie: 1. body louse, 2. bedbug, 3. game similar to hangman, 4. “drunk as a cootie.” (these four usages are from various areas). And there’s also cootie cage (a bed in crowded quarters) and cootie garage (human hair, especially arranged in a puffy hairdo).

I’m a big fan of soup, so perhaps I will look up a recipe for the Amish preaching soup someday. I’m also happy to add another will-o’-the-wisp term (“burnt-tail jinny”) to my vocabulary. Regarding cooties, I had always thought that they were invisible germs. This is not only my personal experience with the word, but I distinctly remember reading an article recently about cooties as an invisible disease that children accuse each other of having. But this is apparently not how most people use the word. My Random House Webster’s College Dictionary defines it as an informal term for a body louse. My Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary similarly refers me to “body louse,” but also gives a potential derivation for the word (from a Malay word kutu).

All I can say is that you learn something (and sometimes three things) new every day.

Thanks to my hubby for this wonderful gift of words!

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SITY: Beetle Views

We found a beetle on the driveway.
It had an interesting face.
It did not like us, and it ran away. I can’t say I blame it.

We looked this beetle up in my Audubon book. Thanks to its distinct markings, it was easy to identify. It was an American carrion beetle.

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SITY: Lunch to Go

Fox in the Yard

There was a fox in our yard today, as you can see in the picture above. Sorry the picture is so bad. It was taken through the back-door window at a bad angle. The wind chimes also got in the way. But, you can tell it’s a fox. It had caught itself a squirrel (see the tail?) and was taking its lunch to go.

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We Made It!

Today was the last day of school. Congratulations to Marshall for improving so wonderfully in language arts over the course of the year, and to Livia for her amazing math skills, and to both for their great report cards. Congratulations to my husband for getting the kids to the bus every day. Congratulations to me for surviving another year of early mornings.

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Google, Where’s My Hubs?

I’ve gotten so used to getting answers from the Internet that it annoys me when it doesn’t have the info I need. Right now my husband is missing. Not in the sense of “Call the police!” but in the sense that he has been gone longer than expected. I probably wouldn’t have noticed except that he has my car, so I’m stuck here until he gets back. I called him, but he didn’t answer. My next thought, as silly as it sounds, was to look it up online. But no. The Internet can’t help with this search query.

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New Reading

Having given up on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I needed something else to read. Here are my replacement reading choices.

  1. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman: After watching and enjoying the adaptation on TV, I thought it might be fun to read the book. However, the book is very similar, word-for-word at times. Though I will probably finish it, I would recommend to everyone else that they leave more time between watching and reading, or vice versa.
  2. Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card: I really enjoyed OSC’s How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, so I was expecting great things from this book. So far, he’s gone to great lengths to explain the obvious, and I am boooooooored.

But it’s all still better than zombies in places that they do not belong!

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Gathering of Power

Today, in positive thought:

No matter how many unstoppable forces seem to be working against us, there are always things that are within our control. We have to focus on what we can control, gather our powers, and work our way up from there.

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