Snow!!!

Finally, and likely not lastingly, it's snowing. Considering it's been trying for a couple of weeks but nothing stuck...well, it's nice to see. Normal. Really, we're in January in Vermont and still with the bare ground? That's not right.

You never know how it'll end. The snow began early this morning and there's only a sugar frosting out there now. The flakes are tiny, which some consider the kind that keeps coming down. The Weather Channel said it'd just be flurries. I've shovelled flurries before.

The sun is setting. With the energy-efficient security lights I won't be able to see much of what's falling soon. But I hope we wake up to a wintery fairyland.  

Etymophilia

The English language is a love of mine. Culture is shaped and defined by its language. And English is a fascinating amalgam of other languages and cultures. It's also always changing. We don't have a "Belles Lettres" to maintain standard usage, which has its benefits and drawbacks.

I especially love archaic English. The more arcane, the more delightful. I can thank my HS English teachers for that, who made us read Chaucer and Shakespeare with an OED and figure it out. Maths bored me; what's the point to solving equations with dead intractable formulas? It's all too simple. No, give me the ever-evolving, multi-influenced "problems" of language.  

If words fascinate you too, here are some bits of fun for a cold winter day...

common Tolkein terms:
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/words.html

general etymology:
http://www.etymonline.com/

the Wiktionary:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page

and here's some phrase origins, for contextual history:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/36400.html

The Post-Holiday Peace

It's funny. This first week of January I used to get a little blue. All the excitement being over and that sort of thing. But this year I'm pretty damn content. Oh sure, the world's a mess and crapola keeps happening, there are still worries (Strider starts vacay tomorrow and i won't really be at ease until she's home and dry) and stupid little annoyances (just found a dirty pan in my oven; it was absolute torture to extend my phone cords today). So what? My Hobbit home is reasonably clean, there are chops in the oven, Beest sleeps in the sofa cushions and while the winter wind whistles down the Brandywine, it's warm and bright in here.

Here we'll spend the cold and snowy (maybe) months, Beest and I feasting on roasted meats. Bundled in quilts and bedclothes, my mind far away in Westeros or Frostfangs, Beest snoring and dreaming of supper, we'll spend the long nights. Here at my desk we'll spend our days gazing out the window, my hand on her back, her purring with little chirpy noises.

It's a peaceful interlude in The Shire. There is war ahead but that's not now. Now there's quiet, and good meat, and companionable repose. Yes, I like this time of year very much. And I'm very glad to just be at home.

Remembering Dare Wright

When I was a little girl (yes, I was, once upon a time) the first series of books I fell in love with were The Lonely Doll stories. The books were about a doll named Edith and the stuffed bears she lived with in Manhattan. They were written and photographed by a woman named Dare Wright. Dare was a fashion model, artist, writer and photographer. In third grade I wrote a fan letter to her and she responded with a handwritten note and a photo of Edith and Little Bear from her book in the works. I treasure them to this day.

She never married or had children. Her children were her dolls and books and a friend's daughter, who was her guardian and inheritor. Dare lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in what had been the Bloomingdale Mansion before it was divided into apartments, one of which she lived and worked in until she became confined to a hospital for the last 7 years of her life. Among her friends were Greta Garbo and Tallulah Bankhead. There is a website about her and the many books she created:
 http://www.darewright.com/images/stories/books/booksaxmagflash/index.html

Today while browsing through children's books I came across a few of Dare's titles, which set me on this stroll down memory lane. All but the original Lonely Doll are out of print now. Hard to believe, really. Those books were a refuge to me. I hope they are reprinted for all the little girls who know the loneliness of childhood.

Rick Santorum: Insane or Just Ignorant?

Paul asked me to bring up Rick Santorum. Would that I could. But Santorum's more of a dry heave, unpleasant, useless and repugnant.

When even your own family can't back you, something's wrong:
http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/03/the-trouble-with-my-uncle-rick-santorum/

You may need something stronger than coffee to stand these stories:
http://santorumexposed.com/

Maybe he isn't totally delusional:
http://santorumexposed.com/?p=133

But with his track record of lies and corruption, what the hell are Repos thinking by running him?
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Rick_Santorum

He still seems to think women came from a spare rib:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Santorum_Amendment

He also equates homosexuality with bestiality; blames Boston (they tilt to the left) for the RC church's pederasty; doesn't believe in a right to privacy; believes contraception is "a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." and  Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington  listed Rick Santorum as one of the "most corrupt politicians". Isn't that special?

I'll leave the last word to Jon Stewart:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-3-2012/indecision-2012---romspringa---rick-santorum-s-surge