Words are powerful things. They are also unruly and difficult beasts to tangle with at times. It takes many years of experience to make words do what you want. Even then, sometimes they will turn on you at the slightest mistake. A good example happened one day this week. I was alone in my office and you know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head and you keep playing it over and over. Out here they call them Ear Worms. Well, I had one of those. Unforgettable by Nat King Cole. It’s a nice song and all, the only problem is that, ironically enough, I can never remember the words. So I found myself singing the song and trying to fudge the lyrics. Note: singing is something I only do when I’m alone. I have no desire to inflict my rather amphibious singing voice on anyone else.

Anyway, I knew I was close but I got off track. The later lyric went something like this

Darling, I’m incredulous
That someone who is so sedulous**.
Would think that I was a bit deciduous too

You see what happened there. I had almost the right word but not quite.
This messed up the rhyming structure and the next thing you know a nice old fashioned love song is turned on it’s ear and she becomes obsessive/compulsive  and he becomes a tree.

Words are devious things.

With words you can even foretell the future. With just seven words you can know the outcome of a story before you’ve even heard any of the details. Example:

So these three young guys got drunk and...

See already you know that it won’t end well, that there will be police involved, possibly personal injury and at least mischief of some kind. Mostly though, you know they will end up looking like idiots, and so far I haven’t told you anything about what happened.

Abbottsford, BC
So there were these three guys who got drunk and,
they decided to get naked and ride a shopping cart through the 24 hour car wash. Of course they did. It makes perfect sense. Well it does if your blood alcohol number is higher than your IQ. It was an especially bad choice as it turned out NOT to be one of the modern brushless car washes. No this was a gauntlet of high velocity hot  and cold water, spinning bristle brushes, those floppy hanging strip scrubber things, and hot air fans. Neighbours were alerted in the middle of the night by screams coming from the building but by the time police arrived the three were getting dressed and seemed to be much more sober then when they started. They were uninjured, though as one commentator pointed out that they were very lucky. The car wash specifically warns that anything dangling or protruding is likely to be damaged. And who knows what the hot wax might have done.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/04/04/bc-abbotsford-carwash.html

Names can be especially tricky too. For example in Nigeria there is a nasty group that is blowing up buildings, killing people, and generally making life miserable for anyone they don’t like. While those that are paid to deal with such groups are well aware of them, they haven’t hit upon the collective consciousness of most people in the west. I think the reason is their name. They are called Boko Haram. Now I’m no expert but I’d think that if you wanted to be taken seriously you might not want to name your band of freedom fighters after a 1960’s one hit wonder band (Procol Harum http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb3iPP-tHdA). Sorry, they might be absolutely ernest but they sound more like a tribute band than the people’s army of anything. What’s next, KC and the Sunshine Junta with their plans for Afternoon Jihad? You want a serious sounding name? Al Quaida is serious. No mistaking them. Most importantly nobody has found anything remotely amusing about them. Especially not Al Kayda from Muncie Indiana. He really finds nothing amusing about the name. However his FRIENDS do find it hysterically funny whenever he goes to the airport.

What I’m leading up to is this. There is a new member of the family. Friday morning little Cora Joy Esterly was born. I think Marsha said something about her being 21 pounds and 9.8 inches long though I’m not sure as I wan’t really paying attention. Most importantly father, mother, and baby are happy and resting comfortably in the knowledge of a well chosen name. (Real stats: 9 pounds, 8 ounces and 21.5 inches long; mga) Scroll to the end of this letter and you will see a picture of the happy family.

**It’s a real word. Look it up

Doug & Marsha

PIX: We had the hedge trimmed. It was quite overgrown so we decided it needed a serious haircut. We took a foot off of the width and over two off of the height. Yes, I know what you're saying.  "Back in the US we'd call that 'vandalism'." but in a couple of years it'll look much better plus now we can see the woods across the street. OK they aren't exactly the prettiest woods in BC. The giant sections of secondhand culvert are an interesting touch, but still we feel less cut off from the street. Of course now we need to invest in curtains.




Chris, Liza and Cora