I think being an adult is mostly about the duality of time. Simultaneously you’re slogging through the minutia of daily life — getting the kids fed, going to work, paying bills — and watching as events whirl past in a dizzying frenzy — wasn’t it just Christmas? How have I not seen our friends since the Inauguration?
This episode of Three Beautiful Things has been brought to you by Philosophy, The Study of Life™:
1. As I get dressed this morning, I am reminded of a comment by my previous boss. A fan of reality tv shows, she and some other coworkers mused that I would make a great contestant on one of those what-not-to-wear shows because I would tell the host where to get off. Today’s unique outfit: my old brown plaid skirt, a yellow pullover, orange socks, and my pink roll-brim hat.
2. The flower man added a number of stems of freesia to the bouquet I made on Sunday. “They smell wonderful. I hope you won’t mind if I make you take home a few more stems.” They opened last night and sniffing them takes you to an old-fashioned dance, set by the water, Ã la Houseboat.
3. Rudi and I were watching the news when the reporter mentioned that police were canvassing an area. As politicos, we were more used to the verb being used in a sense of door-knocking for the purpose of vote getting. Interested in the word, we turned out our dictionaries — his online and my old hard-cover — seeking its origins.
While I do not dispute the perks of having a dictionary always at your fingertips, there’s something about having one where seeking one word can lead you to a nosegay of unrelated ones. In addition to learning more about “canvass,” we also gleaned capapie, captious, and carrefour from my trip into the “c” tab.
For some reason, the police canvassing seemed a perfectly unsurprising use of the word to me, but the politico connotation was the one that made me pause.
Comment by Grey Kitten 02.27.09 @ 4:54 am