Fun with words.

My addiction to music was helped by (or perhaps has spawned) my love of words. I collect dictionaries, some of them in English. I save all of my scripts. I read favorite passages of literature out loud to my birds, hoping they'll learn to say something besides "@#$%". In their defense, they only swear in context.

One thing I especially enjoy is words that sound funny together. It may be a perfectly logical phrase, but the words rhyme, or they give rise to a startling mental image. This past Sunday was a sort of double victory. I happended to hear TWO such phrases. The first occurred in a coffee shop. Our regular knitting group, which has been kicked out of a well-known bookstore cafe for having too much fun, has moved to a more amenable location. Conversation among the participants turned, as it always does, to a wide variety of random subjects. This included the alcoholic preferences of significant others.

All was well until D uttered the phrase "weird beers", which set me right off. I've been giggling about it ever since. Nothing wrong with the words themselves, obviously, but maybe the combination reminded me of one of my favorite Monkees episodes (Mike, dressed as Abe Lincoln, was referred to as a bearded weirdo.). Who knows? It was funny to me.

The other bit of amusement came from Himself that very evening. Dinner on the stove, me arguing with a budgie about why he wasn't allowed to stand in the salad bowl. "I know where those feet have been, Mister!" Himself wanders into the kitchen and spies the aforementioned cookery. Peering into a bubbling pan, he nods sagely. "Steamin' wieners." he announces to no one in particular, then wanders into the front room in search of a book. This staggering visual promptly drove all thought of contaminated salad from my head, allowing the budgie to make off with a chunk of tomato.

I did manage to do more this weekend than I had planned. The orange wool turned out so well, I had high hopes for the "slaughtered clown" roving. I ended up plying it with a plain, off-white strand. Four hundred yards of fingering weight, with another bobbin to go! Woo-hoo! It makes me think of Monet's Water Lilies. It wants to be a shawl. Behold:

Groovy, eh? The orange is slightly thick-and-thin, between worsted and sport weight. The multi is fingering weight. The orange isn't the softest yarn, but it IS squishy. The multi is soft and drapey with a hint of shine.

D fed my ego by asking to wear the orange at Himself's party.

The Party!

It rocked. I was thoroughly prepared to have a miserable day, considering the fact that by Saturday morning, it had been raining nonstop for FOUR DAYS. Not exactly conducive to getting down with our bad selves. Especially when you're planning to barbecue. Luckily, some of our friends live on decent roads. By noon, the house was full and we were having a great time. People showed up, other people left; a nice balance of population at all times. My folks and several others couldn't make it, but those that stayed away had good reason. Four days of rain, especially when you live next to a river, makes for sogginess on a grand scale.

The intersection visible between the gas pumps is the crossing of the town's two major arteries. Some fool actually went wading out in this mess, against all good sense, which gave us an idea of the depth. He was waist high before even getting halfway to the middle of the intersection! The real mind-blower is the fact that this stage of flooding was reached BEFORE the river rose high enough to necessitate closing the flood gates. Rats abandoned the sewers and hung out in yards. Residents abandoned houses and hung out in parking lots with their cameras.

Not only could we not get across town, we couldn't get out of the driveway. Dead fuel pump. Sigh. Oh, well. The fridge is full, the guitars are close at hand, and all of my wool is here. Now, if I could just decide on a pattern...