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Raining Cats and… WHAT?

September 8, 2010 / / 0 Comments

A slight drizzle is falling. I’m looking out through the window, sitting at the desk, dripping. Naturally, when I raced (now that’s a stretch…) from the car to the door, it was Gulf coast water (sans tar-balls) carried all the way across Texas and southern Oklahoma to be dashed down upon my head.

A regular gully-washer, as they say. They – being the ones who presumably live near gullies. We don’t run onto gullies much anymore. Pretty much gone the way of the gulch and other things that cowboys used to burp around the campfire.

Needless to say, it was raining cats and dogs this morning.

We were lucky, I guess. As I look out, the parking lot is free of domestic animals (feral ones too, presumably), so they survived the downpour and ran off to play. It might have been worse. According to some scamp writing for Wikipedia, there have been numerous “rains” of more than just H2O.

Fishies:
Singapore, February 22, 1861; Olneyville, Rhode Island, May 15, 1900; Bhanwad, Jamnagar, India, Oct 24, 2009; Lajamanu, Northern Territory, Australia, February 25 and 26, 2010; Marksville, Louisiana, October 23, 1947.
Frogs and toads
Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, June 2009; Rákóczifalva, Hungary, 18-20 June 2010 (two times).
Others
An unidentified animal (thought to be a cow) fell in California ripped to tiny pieces on August 1, 1869; a similar incident was reported in Olympian Springs, Bath County, Kentucky in 1876; Jellyfish fell from the sky in Bath, England, in 1894; Worms dropped from the sky in Jennings, Louisiana, on July 11, 2007. Spiders fell from the sky in Salta Province, Argentina on April 6, 2007.

Oooooooo…now wouldn’t THAT be a way to start the morning? A downpour of spiders?

I’m happy to be sitting here dripping!

Try the reign of the library cat, Dewey by Vicki Myron:

Life in a Cold Sack…

September 7, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Labor Day is behind us (don’t slam on the brakes, it’s tailgating). The holiday generally marks the end of the boating season, the camping season, the grilling season, and – at long last – the NBA season. (Oh wait, the women are still playing…)

Back in the day, the Labor Day weekend was the last chance to get away with the kids before the school year started. These days, students are about ready for Christmas break by the time Labor Day finally arrives. The school year starts much earlier. Kids are much smarter as a result – but I don’t need to tell you that. (They probably already have!)

I was pretty smart before I had kids, but shed intelligence like a dandered cat as they grew. I knew enough, though, to live in a cold sack. Didn’t realize that was where we were until I overheard my daughter telling someone that we could play in the street because our house was in a cold sack. Thinking about it. Thinking. Thinking.

Ah. Cul-de-sac… who knew my daughter could speak French at such a young age?

She wasn’t far off, actually. It translates as bottom of the bag, which is where you find all the unpopped kernals of corn, the ones we called the grandma’s (although I don’t know why. Even though I am now a grandpa, those bag-dregs don’t look any more attractive…)

And better bottom of the bag than bottom of the barrel, which is a whole different kettle of fish.

Some Sacks from a different bag: Oliver Sacks, neurologist and bestselling author.

Do you Chuckle?

September 6, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Maybe my excellent English teacher Mrs. McNutt is to blame. Somewhere, I developed a curiosity about the language and where words and phrases came from – things like “he’s full of baloney.” (I believe that one began as “full of blarney,” from the auld Irish and the Blarney Stone…)

Some of the sayings have fallen into disuse, or repeated only by grandparents (like me). I haven’t heard “not worth a Continental” in awhile. (The early “Continental” dollar bill was notoriously avoided by colonists during the Revolutionary War period.) I do hear people being called a “smart aleck,” and I can only assume that the person doing the calling has no idea who “Aleck” was. (1840’s New York City, Aleck Hoag, a sort of grifter who thought he knew more than the police, who later arrested him.)

But – if it makes you chuckle, you may be showing your rural roots. Where does the chuckle come from? (Other than a less-than-knee-slappingly-funny joke?) It was originally a verb form, as in “to chuck,” (not to be confused with the verb “upchuck” which really bad jokes may inspire). Around here, we would be more likely to say, “to cluck” than “chuck” – like a chicken. Back in medieval times, the chuck-chuck-chuckle was raucous laughter akin to the sound from the henhouse. By the 1800’s it had evolved into the sound of suppressed laughter, perhaps to keep from disturbing the chickens.

Sort of like a giggle, which – as we all know – is a baby Google.

Try this for chuckles:

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