Last weekend Marsha and were talking about something, I forget what it was, then on Sunday morning I remembered the conversation and wanted to add a bit I’d forgotten about the night before. I walked into the room where she was and said “As an addendum to our discussion last night...” Marsha looked at me and then just said, “You know, you are the only person in the world who uses addendum in casual conversation.” I took that as a compliment, though I could see how it might not necessarily have been. I also use pursuant, ameliorated, and congruent in conversations. Even more I will occasionally use a made up word like cropulant, or pstygotepe just to see if people catch it. I’ve concluded that either I’m a lot smarter than everyone else and they assume I always am using the right word, or nobody listens to me because I’m a dork. 

Naaa, couldn’t be the latter.

I mentioned this conversation to the other actors this week. One of them, Vicky, said that as a kid she always loved words and would use big ones that were exactly right rather than a more common one that was approximately correct. Finally her sister said, “Why do you always have to use such big words? You’re like a walking encyclopedia.” Vicky replied “ I think you mean dictionary.” and her sister just shook her head and left the room.

I wish I’d thought of that.

On Friday I went to speak to the first graders again. This time I was talking about rocks rather than fossils. Kinds of rocks: Rocks from from fire (igneous), rocks from water (sedimentary), and rocks from change (metamorphic) and by how knowing how to read a rock it will tell you the story of everything that happened to it. They seemed to like what I was saying and looking at the rocks and handling them. It turns out that in the class there are kids by the name of Cole and Amethyst, which was interesting. I’m just glad I didn’t bring a sample of squerrlylittlebuggersite

We had some excitement this week too. Marsha called me all in a panic because Momiji was trapped. You see Momiji likes to hop in drawers. Then she really likes to climb over the back and see what’s behind the drawer. This is not a problem in the dresser because she can’t get over the back or in the bathroom where she can exit via the cabinet door. Unfortunately she did this with the bed and couldn’t get out. We have a big box frame with drawers in it and a foot or so of space between the drawers in the middle with no way to escape. Momiji also couldn’t seem to figure out how to hop back into the drawer. Finally Marsha had to take the mattress off the bed and open a panel in the top to let her out. But before Momeji hopped out Geiger hopped in to see what all the fuss was about. Marsha spent quite a bit of time trying to chase the two of them out of the bedroom and I ended up reassembling the bed when I got home as Marsha was worn out. Sometimes I find it amazing that cat's survive at all.

We’ve also discovered that Geiger does not understand the concept of clocks. He’s on solar time. This means that in the winter he can’t figure out why I’m getting up in the middle of the night. He’ll get up for morning feeding and then go back to bed. My attitude, because I’m not really that fond of getting up in the cold and dark either, is boo hoo cat, deal with it. But his revenge comes in the spring. As it gets lighter earlier in the morning he gets up earlier. He’s taken to licking my nose at 4:30 as if to say, “Hey you, it’s light out. Time to get up and feed me.” We have a tense relationship right now. 

And lastly I have finished planting everything in the garden. Peas (accidentally got snow peas rather than english, but it’s OK because we do a lot of stir fries), zucchini (yes I’m trying them again), English cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, and two beds of potatoes. It looks like it’ll be a good year, that is if I can keep the rabbits out.

Doug & Marsha

PIX: More sunrise, because it's going to rain all this week and we won't see this for a while.