February 25, 2018

Leaving serious matters behind.....



In my search for Upper Paleolithic site of Grotte du Renne, and subsequently Châtelperronian artifacts (controversial in archaeologist circles ~ is it a Neanderthal site or a mixture of Modern Humans and Neanderthal ~ zzzzzz, I know), I came across this in the Merriam-Webster dictionary online.  

Somehow knew I was in serious need of silly words that bring childhood back to the forefront.  
So, here are the words, brought to you by Merriam-Webster:

Fart: The humble fart crept, like a silent yet obtrusive guest, into our vocabulary long ago. It existed first as a verb, in use since the 13th century, and as a noun from the 15th. It is not currently considered polite, either in lexical form or in action; we provide a usage note which states "often vulgar," while the majestic Oxford English Dictionary says it is "not now in decent use." That being said, the word has been used by many of our finer scribes (and almost all of our four-year-olds) over the years.

FizzleWhile today fizzle has such noble meanings as "to fail or end feebly especially after a promising start," the word has origins of a baser sort. Fizzle is thought to be an alteration of the Middle English fist ("flatus"), which in addition to providing us with the verb for breaking wind quietly, was also munificent enough to serve as the basis for a now-obsolete noun meaning "a silent fart" (feist).

Farting-crackersFarting-crackers, we regret to inform you, never really caught on. This now-obscure word for breeches appears first in the 1699 A Dictionary of the Canting Crew, and thereafter in a number of other specialized lexicons, such as the 1785 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, and James Caulfield’s 1793 work, Blackguardiana. All of these titles, while major works in the history of lexicography, deal with slang and various other forms of non-standard language. The closest that farting-crackers has ever come to legitimacy, at least insofar as inclusion in a general dictionary qualifies as such, is when it appeared in several editions of Nathan Bailey’s dictionary in the middle of the 18th century. This is where we remind you of our descriptivist bent; if enough people use a word with a definite meaning for a prolonged period we are honor-bound to consider including that word in our dictionary.

Petarade:  Definition - "An act of breaking wind; a fart or series of farts" (Oxford English Dictionary)
Petarade comes to our language from the French, and there is some speculation that, while this curious word may have visited English on occasion, it is but a tourist, and has never become naturalized enough to achieve citizenship in our language. That being said, there appears to be no other single word in our language which may be glossed as "a series of farts," and so certain allowance must be made.
Flatuousity:  Flatuousity may look as though it is nothing more than a lexical parvenu, a gussied-upsynonym that is only good-old-fashioned-flatulence with a fancified suffix, but it is so much more. Well, actually, it is just a synonym for flatulence, but it is the older of the twain. We have been afflicted with flatuosity since the 16th century, and flatulence did not appear on the scene until the 18th
Ventosity: It would be a bit of a stretch to call ventosity a useful word, as it is fairly obsolete. However, it has a nice ring to it, a classical pedigree (coming from the Latin ventosus, "windy, flatulent"), and as an added benefit, contains the secondary meaning of "pompous inflated conceit or boasting."
PumpernickelAt first glance there is no apparent connection between the dark bread, beloved by some, and the subject of this article. However, looking more closely at the word's etymology ensures that you will have an inappropriate morsel of trivia at many a luncheon to come. Pumpernickel comes from the German words pumpern ("to break wind") and Nickel("goblin"), apparently due to its indigestibility. 
Break WindLest you think our forbears an uncouth lot, possessing not even sufficient decorum to be embarrassed by the word fart, allow us to point out that we have been euphemizing our flatulent language since at least the beginning of the 16th century. For that is when we have lexical evidence of break wind.
And so, I end this enlightening post with:
Love, 365

February 23, 2018

When you have a week of awkwardness......

Bing images

A week or so I wrote about being surprised that I was to be the recipient of a "gasp" raise at work.  This, at a place that is infamous for not giving raises.  Many of the long time employees at work (7+ years) are now entering 5 years without a raise.

It seems that this is the time of year everyone "suddenly" realizes they haven't had a raise for another year.  They are upset and angry, and who can blame them?  On the anniversary of my first year at this office I walked into the OM's office and asked for a raise, and told her I would be here in this chair every year asking, because I did go 5 years without a raise back in the day ~ I vowed I wouldn't ever do that again.  So forwarned is forearmed or something like that.

As it is in many work places, there is that one person....you know the one?  We have one.  She's loud. She stirs things up by ranting.  She purposely sews discord....like the times she rubbed in the face of us hourly employees that she's paid a salary and the issues we were having were not a problem for her.  Every freaking year she's on the rampage about raises.  Says she asks for all of us, you know, because she's so generous, haha.  Did I mention she's loud???  So this year instead of asking for a raise, she applied for other jobs, and was offered one.  She said she was offered a higher rate of pay, and that her insurance would be covered 100% (which was where I knew she was spinning it, because only a select few have their insurance covered at that rate ~ and never at a dental office).  Her meeting with one of the Docs was Tues night and made her pitch.  She didn't ask for much (she told me what she asked for) but was told there would be no raise.  And despite all of that, she called that dentist yesterday and declined his offer, presumably because she had another interview and would prefer their office to the previous one.

She hasn't been offered that job yet.  But she turned down the raise that's so important?  And the supposed generous insurance coverage?  I think she's not being very truthful (pants on fire) and was trying to manipulate the Doc's.  Who, thankfully saw right through that.  It's my opinion they are hoping she will accept another job.

I hope the awkward issues are smoothed over a little bit over the weekend.  And truthfully in a totally selfish way, I hope she stays, because I don't want her job.

Looking forward to the weekend and a break from the craziness......
Love, 365

February 16, 2018

Lost and found.....or not

Well, I haven't found it yet......(Bing images)

We've all lost stuff before.  A favorite pen.  One earring.  A library book.  And usually if we search for long enough, we find it.  Maybe it fell between the couch cushions, or under the seat of the car.  But sometimes we think we've found a clever place to put something, only later (sometimes much later) we can't recall where that clever place is.

Such it is with my old iPod.  I've put it somewhere.  I've looked in all the places I thought I'd put it.  I've found other stuff....like the original box for my watch, old papers I need to shred, straps to stuff that I don't recall what they go to, and decided I don't need anymore.  

It's in fabulous shape, because I like to take care of my stuff.  I know I didn't give it away, it was a very old model that I believe wasn't very popular.  I liked it because it was small and square and I could easily tuck it into my pocket, which I did while walking the dog.  (And I didn't lose it in a park, I would have noticed if it fell out since it was attached to my ears with the ear buds). Today I gave up on finding it.  Romeo figures that once I give up and buy one I'll find it pronto, and he's probably right.  But I didn't want to buy a newer model, which takes a different type of charger plug, and wouldn't fit into my charger/speaker/radio contraption that I already had.  It was great to find the same iPod on eBay.  Inexpensive.  Will get here next week.  I figure I'll find my old one this weekend.  Sort of a Murphy's Law thing.

Love, 365

February 12, 2018

Playing hooky........

Telling secrets....

Just having come off a hellish week where I had two papers due, I decided I needed a mental health break from class.  Yep......I skipped it.  Based on the last four weeks, I can pretty well guarantee that I didn't miss much.  Monday's he mostly lectures, but what's funny is he basically recycles it all on Wednesday.  I've spent half the day catching up on reading, and I'm still not done.  As soon as I wrap this up, I'll be back at it.  Reading that is.

What really blows is how much reading he assigns.  This week it's only about 45 pages.  The week before that it was nearly 100.  And this is only half of what I have to read.  History is fairly straight forward, Stone Age Europe is more challenging.  SAE is delving into Neandertals and DNA and how much of theirs is ours.  Which turns out to be an average of 2.5%.  Some people have more, like Romeo, who is German, British, Swedish....in other words, northeastern European.  Which mean his ancestors from oh, 6 or 7 thousand years ago.  He's sporting 7% of those genes, which explains a lot, hahaha.  I haven't done my 23 & Me testing yet, but I'll have to do that soon, now I'm curious.  

So, that's it.  I got nothin else today, and I still have 50 pages to read.
Have a great week, y'all....
Love, 365

February 9, 2018

Don't ya hate it when........


This week, despite the fact that it started out with a MONDAY
~ usually the worst day of the week for those of us that aren't retired ~ it was a great week, even though there was a bit of trauma when two of our dental assistants called in sick on the
same day.  What made it great was the cooperation and team work that got everyone through the day, and none of the
patients were rescheduled.  I even had a brief discussion
with our OM, and was completely surprised that she mentioned
that I'm to be on the receiving end of a raise ~ you know, the
raise that doesn't really increase your bottom line much but
at least shows that you're being rewarded for your hard work.
I have some issues with our OM, but that narrative will have
to wait for another day.
Then a small little thing plunged me into tears, and which
remains with me today.......






I have a friend, someone from a previous
workplace...there are barriers to our getting
together on a regular basis, so when we do get
together, it's special.
In the past 4 months we've made plans to get
together three different times.  The first time
she cancelled, she was sick.  The second time
she cancelled, she texted she had forgotten that
she had a massage scheduled, and company
coming that weekend.  Yesterday she cancelled
because her husband has a terrible cold, and she
felt guilty that she would be leaving him alone
for two more hours after a full day of work.
And I get it, I really do......I've seen so many patient cancellations due to flu and colds and other illnesses in the past month.  My biggest issue is that she always cancels the day of our plans.  Which
means I really don't have time to plan anything else.  I feel both angry and sad at the same time.  I would really appreciate a day's notice, which would at least indicate that my time is at least as
valuable as hers.

I guess I'm tired of making excuses for her.  And worst of all, I don't like feeling like the person in her
life that doesn't deserve consideration, and it's ok to do this to me over and over.  And yet, I hate to sever our relationship.  Why?  I don't know.  I have a lot of trouble letting go, and/or feeling that I'm just not that important.

Love, 365

February 3, 2018

Drat.....

Bing images

Yesterday I had two assignments due for my anthropology class.  I had waited until Friday after work to complete them....because you know I procrastinate the hell out of everything.  Especially homework assignments.  While I'm working, my mouse disconnects.  Which happens often.  And drives me mad....... Usually I simply restart the computer, and when it comes back, my mouse is magically reconnected.  Except this time my computer didn't start.  Which led to a phone call to Apple, where a very nice gentleman tried to help, but to no avail.  I had to take it down to the Apple Store for some fixing up.

In the meantime, I borrowed Romeo's computer to finish up my assignments.  Of course, on one assignment I hit the submit button before I had actually downloaded it.  Sheesh.  I was able to send it in a message, which I recently discovered was received and approved.  Double sheesh.

Whereupon my entire computer has to be erased and then reinstalled.  And I discovered that the backup hard drive has not been backing up anything despite my bi-weekly attempts.  

Anyway, after 3 hours (one hour wait time for the "geniuses" to have time for me), and two hours to diagnose and all that other stuff, I finally can head home and start on my paper.  Where I've been half-heartedly working on until now.  I need a break.  

I have to hand it to Apple though.  After 3 hours, and fixing me up they didn't charge me anything.  I think that's incredible in this day and age of charging for everything.  Of course, nothing was broken or irreparable so there's that.  I was fully prepared to buy a new computer if necessary, but the woman who helped me said all seemed fine, and that these things happen sometimes.  She was incredibly patient, not only with me, but with the elderly lady next to me.  If I'd had a PC, I'm sure I would have been charged by the hour for the help I received for free at Apple.  And that's going a long way to keeping me as a customer.

Love, 365

False spring is over.....

  I took this photo of a ranunculus I bought a few days before.  They are such beautiful flowers ~ so delicate and brightly colored.  I don&...