October 29, 2006
Nothing to do with rainfall
Today I found out about the origins of bridal showers. Maybe you knew already; I didn’t. It’s a Dutch tradition, when the bride’s father rejects the marriage and then the community rallies together to “shower” her with goods in place of a dowry.
October 25, 2006
A great modifier
I’m sort of in love with the idea of a hyperbolic thesaurus. I don’t know if one exists, or what good it would really be if one did, but I want one all the same. “cold: freezing, burrr-y, 50 below zero, the North Pole, arctic, glacial, polar, Siberian; and if still at a loss, of course “fcking” always makes a great modifier. I think I would be well-qualified to write a hyperbolic thesaurus, if such a position ever became available.
In exciting news (and speaking of cold),Laura has arrived at the South Pole and her first blog entry about it is fascinating. Guardian Podcast: can creative writing be taught (blah blah blah)? I’ll give it a listen tonight o’er my knitting.
Back to work you.
October 24, 2006
Dinner tonight
Tonight, I am commemorating the Hungarian Revolution by cooking a Hungarian meal for Stu, Curtis and Erin. Menu as follows: Cucumber Salad with Sour Cream (Tejfeles uborkasalata), Chicken Paprikas (Csirkepaprikas) with potato dumplings and Hungarian Apple Strudel (Almasetes) for dessert. Like most of my culinary escapades, if it’s good it will be very very good, and if it’s bad it will be horrible.
Quandary of the day: how did a package sent via surface mail by Stuart’s Mum and Dad in the Northwest of England posted on Friday October 20th appear in our mailbox on Monday October 23? The postal system has much in common with my culinary escapades, but is all the more capricious.
October 23, 2006
According to the COED
curly-grass fern: n. a fern of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Jersey, schizaea pusilla, with wiry, grass-like fronds.
Is it not odd that this fern knows to only grow in places whose names start with some form of “new”, even though the places are pretty far apart and/or are separate landmasses?
October 20, 2006
the lawn mower that is broken
It is curious that I no longer require the use of an index and can remember that the explanation for “that vs. which” lies on page 59 of my Strunk and White, and yet I never can remember what the explanation is.
