We've returned from the land of technical difficulties! Hello again to all of you.

I should mention that my sister Kathryn actually introduced me to the word zeitgeist. It means "the spirit of the times." Or some such. As I said, I don't know much German. But, in the fashion of irresponsible translators everywhere, I'm twisting it a bit to mean "whatever I'm thinking right about now."

Don't laugh. Fitzgerald did pretty much the same thing with The Odyssey.

In other news, tonight I will be yelling and waving my arms around and the Manchester United/Celtic game here in unseasonably sunny Seattle. Will report tomorrow on potential football hooligan activity. Sigh... The British have done so much for us.

This is brilliant and must be widely read by all and sundry. George Bush is a negative talker. But just so you know, I made a similar argument about Nathaniel Hawthorne in a term paper several years back. So I'm officially a smartypants.

Casey pointed out that Royal Crown is a brand of soda, and Crown Royal is that horrible whiskey that comes in the purple bags. I suspect that if you mix the two, they cancel each other out and you end up with a glass of water.

It occurs to me that a Royal Corona is not a typewriter at all. A Royal is a typewriter. A Smith-Corona is a typewriter. A Smith & Wesson is a gun of some sort. A Royal Corona is a Cuban cigar. My father had an old Royal when I was a kid, and he used it to type out the report on Uruguay that I had scribbled out at the very last minute when I was in sixth grade (I couldn't type, and he's a very nice guy).

So, you see, it all fits together.

Stephanie has spent today working with tour descriptions sent in by a company from Uruguay. She sends me the funny bits:


Stephanie says:
This Center was originally set up by the Government to look after abandoned elephants and here we see the elephants in their natural surroundings giving various demonstrations of their working life...
Stephanie says:
elephants move logs and play musical instruments in their natural surroundings?
Sarah says:
this one has been taught to type on an old Royal Corona, and has the rudiments of chartered accountancy
Stephanie says:
they live forever you know - he might even make it to full actuarial given the proper tools.
Sarah says:
of the five full actuaries in the US, three are elephants


I bet you never knew that, did you?

Spent my lunchtime outside on the grass, reading and soaking up sunshine. When you live in Seattle, you have to get as much sunshine as possible, because you never know when it will be back.

I'm reading The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams, who writes very long, very good books. It's great so far: full of fairies with unpleasant personalities and a thirty-year old man who, I suspect, will be forced to grow up by the end. At least in some respects. And the cover is very pretty.

I poetryized this site as of the previous (and, until now, only) post:

Zeitgeist Big words I can make
myself vaguely understood by a bit of course, Greek which
is almost as bad, but
I spoke
Spanish, and
Latin. or Spanish,
and Latin. My Italian French, and
once, not
trying to begin with. I learned in
order to graduate school in school
and once, long ago, I was thinking about
languages.
Once, not trying to turn
into Latin or Spanish,
though.

And it's true. I'm not trying to turn into Latin or Spanish.

So, I was thinking about languages. Once, long ago, I spoke Spanish, and once, not so long ago, I spoke a bit of Italian. In order to go on to graduate school in Classics, I'll need to know Italian, French, and German, since that's what all the critics write in. Plus, of course, Greek and Latin.

My Latin has atrophied terribly, although it wasn't that stellar to begin with. I was full of myself for being good at Greek when no one else was, so I ignored Latin entirely. Now I can't remember what the hell a gerundive is. My Greek is almost as bad, but I pick it up again fairly quickly if I put my mind to it.

So where does that leave me?

I can make myself vaguely understood in Italian, haltingly, as long as I'm not trying to discuss anything beyond the weather, directions, or food. My Italian has a tendancy to turn into Latin or Spanish, though. Sometimes even Greek, which is very strange. I suspect that at this point I can only be understood by a handful of dyslexic linguistic scholars.

I like to think that makes me special.