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January 11, 1997
Writing: 2. Anything written or printed; anything expressed in characters or letters; as: (a) Any legal instrument, as a deed, a receipt, a bond, an agreement, or the like. (b) Any written composition; a pamphlet; a work; a literary production; a book; as, the writings of Addison. (c) An inscription.
Janet, Elizabeth has been given the privilege of taking Ruffles (the guinea pig) home for the weekend. Of course this means transport in your vehicle. If this is Ok let me know. (looks like snow on Friday hahahahahahaah) --Kevin Egan
I slept til noon - no more threatening phone calls - snow started last night changed to rain this morning and melted - snow started again in the greater Groton area about 2:55PM and thereby hangs this tail...tale...
So Aunt Janet goes to the third grade classroom to pick up Ruffles. The cage is sitting in a cardboard box suitable for carrying to the car. Mrs. A, the teacher, is nowhere in sight. We wait. We finally take the guinea pig and start walking down the hall. We run into another teacher who asks: "Doesn't Ruffles have a blankie? She'll catch a chill out there an get a cold." No blankie. I make some inane comment about not knowing anything about guinea pig upper respiratory infections but knowing a whole lot about feline URIs. This goes over everyone's head. Elizabeth is deeply concerned now that Ruffles will catch a cold between the school and the car. I take off my jacket and we secure it over the guinea pig cage. We go outside. I'm freezing. It's snowing. I've loaned my jacket to a guinea pig! Co-dependence doesn't even begin to cover it!
Ruffles arrives home with no signs of URI. I turn the heat up in the house to thaw out Aunt Janet's aching bones and keep Ruffles warm. I remind EKE to keep the door of her room closed. E&A; refuse to get in the car to go to Mrs. Reed's for piano. Apparently Mrs. A has told E that Ruffles can't be left alone for an hour in a new environment. "What happens to Ruffles at night?" I ask. "Oh, Mrs. A covers her cage and she goes to sleep." "For more than an hour?" "Yes, but we can't leave her alone in a new environment until she adjusts, which takes at least an hour!" I call Mrs. Reed and sheepishly explain why E is not coming to piano. I bet she's never heard the guinea pig excuse before. I'm mortified at losing this battle but I don't want a dead guinea pig on my conscience.
Meanwhile the gentle snow has turned into an intense squall. Not good weather for stuffed animal bungie jumping. So we played a rousing game of 'Smath. For those readers unfamiliar with 'Smath, it's like Scrabble only with equations. Kinda fun. Andrea hasn't learned division yet so we played as a team vs Elizabeth. Elizabeth won.
The kids are getting hungry and I'm getting antsy because i'm going to be late to meet Mark and give him his birthday present. Bertha comes in with pure white snow on her gorgeous black fur. I remind E to check that the door is closed to her room where Ruffles is. I can see it now: Bertha eats Ruffles and I'm dead meat. Andrea brushes the snow off Bertha. Ruffles is secure.
Kevin arrives with cold pizza after an hour in traffic just in Groton. He tells me the driving is terrible and Rt. 2 is closed in the Leominster/Fitchburg area and there's problems up my way at I93 and I495. I debate whether I should try to call Mark at Borders in Framingham and tell him I can't come or I should just go. I go.
I get stuck on the hill on Broadmeadow Rd. Icy. I back up an take another try and make it onto 119. Once I get to I495, I'm golden. I'm only half an hour late to meet Mark. We have caffeinated beverages and I give him his present with what's left of the ribbon (readers will recall that Wilbur ate part of it) --- a set of Dilbert magnets. We talk and laugh and cringe when the folk singer on duty does a very bad cover of Joan Baez' Diamonds and Rust. I tell Mark I remember how wet I got when I heard Joan sing that at the Newport Folk Festival...
I get home really late. No obscene messages on the answering machine. Good. Maybe the whole thing was a wrong number and the guy thought he was threatening some other chick.
ressentiment: n., souvenir d'un injure, avec desire de s'en venger. -- Petit Larousse, 1959
Nancy told me the reason I couldn't find ressentiment in the Webster's Dictionary is because it's French! Voila! I reach for the trusty Petit Larousse. Sacre bleu!
these postfeminists are starting to sound like pre-feminists to me
and did you know that the feminist movement started only 30 years
ago? neither did I -- oh darn I lost the link for this one - it was
on one of the links from pfplayground-- in 1968???????
where do these postfeminists come up with this (and where do they
learn math 1997-1968=29 not 30 and I didn't even win at 'Smath)?
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, John Stuart Mill, Victoria Claflin
Woodhull, [insert more feminists here]
we turn again to my trusty Petit Larousse, published in
1959:
feminisme: n, tendance a ameliorer la situation de la femme dans le societe a etendre ses droits etc.
basically: a movement for women's rights and you know Petit Larousse wouldn't list it if it were a neologism
If there was no feminism before 1968 how on earth did we get the right to vote? I seem to remember learning about this stuff in history class in high school. I guess they don't teach that in the postfeminist high school.
hang on i'm getting to the part about anurans really i am
OK. So I was like gonna write this whole thing about the uses of bufotoxin - the poison excreted through the skin of toads (Bufo bufo). At Borders tonight I found this cool book Toads and Toadstools, which had a lot of folklore about both. It had lots of interesting things about bufotoxin. Odd coincidence since I had already written today's title with Anuran in it thinking that bufotoxin was the next logical postfeminist body fluid (anuran is tailless amphibian - that is frogs and toads). Anyway I didn't buy the book and I'm too tired to do the discourse on it now. In fact it's already tomorrow