Dear Kid,

The English Language. It may not be perfect (ever think about the way the word “cough” is spelled?), it may be a little confusing (your, you’re, ur), but it’s ours.

Oh, English, English, English.

In a new comic,  Maria Scrivan shows four words that have taken on new meaning. The first is green which at one time referred to the color and now means environmentally friendly. I’ll leave it to you to click through to see the rest (my prediction is you’ll like the fourth one the best—let me know).

In other news, today is unofficially Take Your Gun to Starbucks Day. I kid you not. Go elsewhere for caffeine.

We didn’t watch the Persied Meteor Shower this weekend (at least this part of the ‘we’ didn’t—can’t swear that no one got up to view it). As expected, the inconvenient time (when will Mother Nature learn to check our schedules before planning a big event?) and the jam packed weekend meant we were more interested in the inside of our eyelids than the outside of the heavens. I have it on great authority that if you were somewhere without cloud cover (and you were looking in the right place), it was quite a glorious site. If you are so inclined, there are several more crazy early morning watchings available.

We also didn’t build a retaining wall this weekend. Turns out that Dad and I had a misunderstanding of what the wall was supposed to do. When he understood what I thought he meant (follow that?), he clarified. When I understood what he meant, I vetoed. No wall right now. But he and Pi did an excellent job pouring cement around the sewer drain to try to put a stop to the erosion problem. Even without a Blue Ox, Paul Bunyan did a Most Excellent Job of starting the planting bed for the Great Iris Expansion.

We did a fair amount of weeding yesterday. Booker spent most of the time basking in the sun. Note to self: Teach puppy to identify weeds and dig them up. Response to note to self: Ha!

There is an upside-down glass on the floor in our kitchen. This—as you well know—is the international signal for There Is A Bug Trapped Here That We Intend To Release Into The Wild But Has A 50/50 Chance of Dying Before We Get Around To It. Remember the saying in Animal Farm: Four legs good, two legs better? My version is: Four legs good, more legs outside. As in, Wildlife Belongs In the Wild Not In My Kitchen. Booker was no help at all. When the spider went scurrying across the floor he stared at me hopefully. I’m guessing the hopeful was for food and not permission to play with the spider since I was shrieking “Where is the spider??? Booker, get the spider!!!!” at the time.

Hope your (not you’re or ur) day is filled with the appropriate number of legs.

Love, Mom

Timber!!

Dear Kid,

Today was an outside sort of day. The tree is felled (complete with the ceremonial shout of “timber!”), the hosta are planted (hostas? I’m not sure), and Booker and I had a wonderful time digging in the garden.

This time when I say “we dug” I actually mean it. Booker got the scent of something and tracked it down by the drain. Where it disappeared. And he began to try to figure out how to get to it. Not surprisingly, he followed his nose, only his nose wanted to go further than it could reach. Booker began to dig. It probably would have been more effective if he had bigger paws.

The baby did the best he could with his miniature paws. He pawed. He sniffed. He dug some more. He sniffed a lot more.  It’s possible he inhaled more dirt than he dug up. He never found the varmint but  he kept himself occupied for more than an hour. And for someone with a pea-brain like his, that’s saying something!

Did you know you can finish a seam by felling? I haven’t quite figured out what that entails, but it’s another use for the word “felling” according dictionary.com.

It’s also been an allergy-filled day. Everyone is sneezing and snorting and sniffling. It’s a good day to own stock in antihistamines and Puffs.

I tried to find something interesting about the phrase “Shiver me Timbers!” It’s used as an expletive, but no one seems inclined to agree on what it actually means. Therefore (obviously) it falls to me to clear up the confusion. (Are you taking notes?) “Shiver me timbers!” means “Yark!” in Pirate [a language commonly spoken by people wearing eye-patches, drinking rum, and generally ignoring proper hygiene].

Timbre relates to the quality of a sound. No one ever yells, “Tim-bre!”

BTW—MOST excellent dinner.

Love, Mom