Welcome Home

So my partial scarf and I made it home safely this morning after a weekend of food, family, and fiestas. You may also admire the crocheted tablecloth the true love purchased out of the donation box at Goodwill when we were dropping off stuff there. It will receive a dye bath in the coming months to make it a little less distracting to eat off of. Still, $7 was a bargain and it is very large.

Some of my free time in Tucson (in bed at 9 PM) was spent very much enjoying Jonathan's loaned book, The Wee Free Men. It is a ripping yarn with so many fanciful and creative images in it. I feel the urge to share a word-related passage that resonated:

Tiffany thought a lot about words, in the long hours of churning butter. Onomatopoetic, she'd discovered in the dictionary, meant words that sounded like the noise of the thing they were describing, like cuckoo. But she thought there should be a word meaning the word that sounds like the noise a thing would make if that thing made a noise even though, actually, it doesn't, but would if it did.

Glint, for example. If light made a noise as it reflected off a distant window, it'd go glint! And the light of tinsel, all those little glints chiming together, would make a noise like glitterglitter. Gleam was a clean, smooth noise from a surface that was intended to shine all day. And glisten was the soft, almost greasy sound of something rich and oily.

I just love young adult books, and this is a very enjoyable one. I look forward to the further two paperbacks also by Pratchett that are sitting in the living room. Witches are fun!

Instead of returning home from my trip and spending the day in idleness (as per usual) I was panicked into action! One of the classes I am slated to teach, that I had been all but promised would be canceled, and which starts in a number of weeks, is now the little class that could, or might. The department is saying they hope it can happen and maybe it will, and a student taking it really hopes it will happen. So now I am hunkering down and getting everything in order. Nothing like a little anxiety to sharpen your focus, eh?

My research class (taking, not teaching) starts on the 11th and I may be scrapping all of my previous ideas to start afresh. The future is, at present, and by definition, a mystery, but there is much toil ahead. And tomorrow I agreed to work as a sub in upper elementary. Aren't we getting all serious and busy now!