Rough day

J: "I wouldn't mind being a potato."

M: "Well, it's still morning, but I'll go out on a limb and say that's the quote of the day."

Where we go when we sleep

She woke up crying, which woke me up in turn.

"What's the matter, love?"

"I had a bad dream. A silly bad dream, but still..."

In the dream, she'd been the passenger in a car and had spotted a pair of bobcats. Her companion (not me) had stopped only briefly and begrudgingly—"You got a picture, what are you upset about?"—and then refused to stop at all when two kittens appeared. Her sobbing in the dream spilled over into the real world, and there we were.

Relieved that the content hadn't been truly nightmarish, I proceeded to tell her of my own dream: we'd been driving together, away down South somewhere—rural Georgia, perhaps—and were just coming into a town when Fiona (our white Subaru) starting thumping, a tyre having obviously gone flat. I turned off the two-lane highway onto a short gravel drive leading to what appeared to be an open-air antiques store. Stopping by a glass-fronted bookcase, I began perusing a once-magnificent volume—marbled endpapers, sadly deteriorating leather cover—from around the turn of the last century. The author, an eccentric Victorian hunter, related his experience with, and decided opinions on, various cartridges, ranging from a (non-existent) .20-calibre revolver round to his favourite rifle ammunition—I believe it was .500 Nitro Express—for Tyrannosaurus rex.

She laughed at the thought of this mustachioed gentleman in khakis and pith helmet facing down a tyrannosaur with a double rifle—and then again when she realised that grammatically she had just assigned the double rifle to the tyrannosaur, who manifestly did not need it—and her bobcat disappointment dissipated.

[Thank you, Internet. Here's a nice (actually, "best") side-by-side double rifle by London gunmaker E.J. Churchill; this one is chambered in .470 Nitro Express, but it gives the general idea.]

"Completely unreasonable," I observed.

"I know, right? But you would have stopped for as many pictures as I wanted—I know you would."

"Of course, blossom. But actually, I was referring to you."

"Me? What did I do?!"

"You were pretty impatient with my reading that book."

"Why would I mind that?"

"Well, I think you wanted me to deal with the tyre."

Small craft warning

She does this sometimes: if she doesn't like the weather in Lincoln, she'll start checking some of our other "hometowns".

J: "Wow, Annapolis has a small craft warning in effect."

M: "That'll be down to the wind."

J: "I suppose so."

M: "Blows away your beads, your yarn, your popsicle sticks and suchlike."

J [after brief pause]: "I don't like you."

Sunday morning with a railroad cat

We got off to a slow start yesterday; there was plenty of work to be done in the back garden, but it was raining, and anyway Jessa woke up not feeling well, so we did ourselves a kindness and stayed mostly in bed with a couple of brief sorties for tea. Ellie eventually came to join us for a snuggle, and so did Cathan and Caiomhe, a contented pile of people and cats lounging on and under the goosedown blanket as Sunday morning stretched into Sunday afternoon. Just as Jessa started to think about getting up, Caoimhe, who had been lying on Jessa already, stretched out a paw and went to sleep.

My comment, "She looks just like Chessie," was met with blank stares from both my wife and daughter. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

"Regional, or just because you're old?" Jessa teased. Well, both, apparently. I pulled up the Wikipedia page on Chessie to dispel their ignorance, and both Jessa and Ellie agreed that Caoimhe, whose appearance belies her five years, is a ringer for C&O's sleeping kitten.

We stayed in another half-hour at least.

Home improvement

Jessa sent me the following text yesterday:

Little boy at Home Depot: "I LOVE this store! You can buy plants! You can buy WATERFALLS!" Kid's got his priorities in order.

Abhorrent

Previous post notwithstanding, we do occasionally make an effort at housekeeping.

J: "Hey, would you help me open this box?"

M: "Why, what is it?"

J: "It's our new vacuum."

M: "Damned heavy for a box with nothing in it."

J: "Innit?"

Follow me

J (for the twenty-seventh time that day): "Pull over, I want to take a picture."

M (eyes rolling): "Okay, fine..."

J: "I was just kidding! Anyway, you can't pull over here; it's a roadworks. You have to follow the blinky truck."

M: "I think it's called a pilot car."

J: "Well, I like 'blinky truck'. It's more evocative."

Too personal

On seeing a kayak at the farm store:

J: "Why would they sell kayaks at the farm store?"

M: "The same reason they sell kayaks anywhere else, for boating. It's a one-person boat. A personal boat, you might say. [Faltering.] A one-personal boat."

J: "How about a tandem kayak? Would that be two-personal?"

M: "No, we can talk about that."

Recursive sock-puppet torture

Somehow the conversation turned to "The Song That Never Ends".

J: "Oh my god, I hate that song. Do you have any idea how many times Heather would sing that just to annoy me?"

M: "Once?"

J: "You suck."

Full-service banking

"Good day, sir. How may we help you?"

"I'd like to cash a check, please. A Christmas present from my wife's grandparents."

"Do you have an account here, sir?"

"I don't, actually, but as you can see, the check is drawn on this bank."

"I'm sorry, sir, but we can't cash the check if you don't have an account here."

"You're joking."

"No, sir."

"Why ever not?"

"Well, sir, if the account had insufficient funds, for example...and we'd already handed over the cash..."

"I naturally assume, being a wunch of bankers and all, that you'd go after dear old grandpa. [Brightening.] Throw his arse in debtor's prison or something."

"I'm sorry, sir. Debtor's prisons don't really exist anymore."

"Right, I'm sure you people led the charge for reform."

"There's really no need for sarcasm, sir. We're open to all sorts of solutions."

"Except for cashing checks drawn on your own bloody bank if I don't happen to bank here."

"Yes, except for that, sir."

"Ah, well, don't worry about it, and please don't take my frustration personally."

"Thank you, sir."

"I understand, rules are rules, and after all, illegitimate children need to make a living as well."

"Um, yes, well...have a nice day, sir."

The man turns to go, but at the door he stops, turns back and intones the word "Bastards!" A shocked quiet reigns for a moment. "You know, just in case you were still trying to decipher my last remark," he adds helpfully. And he steps out into the snow to seek a more accommodating financial establishment.

Make mine a lovely Harp

Overheard by someone sitting near me at McCourt's before they shut down:

"I don't really like Guinness. I honestly wish I did. I mean, to be Irish, even half-Irish by marriage, and not like t' black stuff—well, it's a bit of a social handicap, innit? But t' truth is, if you give me t' choice between a Guinness and a pint o' horse piss—well, I'm goin' t' have t' seriously consider t' age and condition of t' horse."

Soul of wit

In a conversation comparing the wordplay, linguistic innovation, and quotability of Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Serenity, Much Ado About Nothing) and William Shakespeare (Macbeth, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing):

M: "...Of course, Whedon's soliloquies do tend to be shorter."

J: "Well, you know what they say about brevity..."

M: "'The soul of wit', yeah?

J: "Ooh, I like that! It's catchy."

Southern Living

M: "Hi, sweetie. Whatcha doin'?"

J: "Oh, just reading a magazine."

M: "I see. Wait, are you really reading, or just looking at pictures?"

J: "Well, the pictures are kinda sexy... You could, y'know, look with me if you want to."

M: "Um, sure, I guess so. Oooh... Oh, wow."

J: "I know, right? So...would you like to try that sometime?"

M: "You are a great wife, you know that?"

Bears play through

From the Wikipedia entry on Highlands, North Carolina: "In the 1930s the town became a golfing mecca when Bobby Jones of Atlanta and some of his well-heeled golfing buddies founded the Highlands Country Club. Today that club is one of seven successful residential country club communities in the area."

J: "Don't bears ever wander onto the course?"

M: "Bears play through. [Pause.] It's an unwritten rule, but everyone follows it."

"Le Chanson de l'Emerillon"

A Sunday morning in the Farrell-Churchill household. I'm washing up the dishes, Jessica is drinking coffee from Café du Monde, and she starts humming a French tune, one to which most Americans know only the first line: "Alouette, gentille alouette..."

"That's a hawking song, you know."

"Really? What does it mean?"

"Well, alouette means lark..."

"Uh-oh."

"...and it's sort of a love song by the merlin to its traditional quarry."

"I don't like where this is going."

J'ai passé six années de français, mais j'ai oublié le plupart. [I took six years of French, but I've forgotten most of it. I keep this one sentence handy just in case.] This much, however, I can manage.

Le Chanson de l'Emerillon, as presented in John Loft's A Merlin For Me

Alouette, gentille alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai.
Je te plumerai la tête,
Ah! la tête, ah! la tête,
Alouette, alouette, ah!

Alouette, gentille alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai.
Je te plumerai le bec,
Ah! le bec, ah! le bec,
Alouette, alouette, ah!

Alouette, gentille alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai.
Je te plumerai les ailes,
Ah! les ailes, ah! les ailes,
Alouette, alouette, ah!

Translated (for accuracy, not for meter):

The Song of the Merlin

Skylark, nice skylark,
Skylark, I will pluck you.
I will pluck your head,
Ah! your head, ah! your head,
Skylark, skylark, ah!

Skylark, nice skylark,
Skylark, I will pluck you.
I will pluck your beak,
Ah! your beak, ah! your beak,
Skylark, skylark, ah!

Skylark, nice skylark,
Skylark, I will pluck you.
I will pluck your wings,
Ah! your wings, ah! your wings,
Skylark, skylark, ah!

(For meter, I'd switch up the first lines to read:

I will pluck you, oh yes I will pluck you,
I will pluck you, pretty little lark.

Any falconer who's flown small hawks at birds, incidentally, will recognize the validity of the head-beak-wings sequence.)

Jessica again: "You're going to teach that to our kids, aren't you?"

"Sure, why not?"

"That's a terrible song!"

"Hey, don't blame me; you're the one who's part French."

Dekes

J: "So what's with all the decoys, anyway? You fly hawks, but you don't shoot, do you?"

M: "Those are for the bathtub."

J: "You know, most people just have the little yellow rubber duckies."

M: "I like them better grown up."

Useful

J: "Well, I think you’re useful. I like all the ways you’re useful."

M: "Right, I’m like a Swiss Army knife: useful, versatile, pretty sharp..."

J: "And you’ve been around for ages!"

English Breakfast

J: "Just so you know, you're only supposed to use three teaspoons per pot."

M: "Well, I used four. Wait, are teaspoons the big ones or the little ones?"

J: "The little ones."

M: "Oh god..."

It was a bit strong.

Medical school

M: "If I remember correctly from medical school, the neck bone's connected to the backbone."

J: "That wasn't medical school, that was elementary school."

M: "That would explain the singing..."

J: [Pauses.] "I think I may have misrepresented my qualifications on my résumé."

Chickens

M: "Best keep Anya well away from the chickens."

J: "I think she just wants to play with them."

M: "Sure, until she eats one..."

J: "That's how she knows she won!"