Words!

Meemaw and Grandma Noni gave Trey and me some Christmas money that we have happily spent up rather quickly. One of my splurges is the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (I think I recall Daniel telling me years ago that I should get this, which I wasn't able to do because of financial constraints. It isn't as pricey as the full-blown OED, but it's not cheap.) The OED is the definitive work on etymology and usage, current and historical, comprising twenty volumes for a price around $1200. The SOED is something that won't take up an entire bookshelf, for which I am sacrificing numerous entries. I probably will never read through all of the two volumes, but I'm sure I'll enjoy what I do read.

Anyway, it's supposed to arrive today! I got it on Amazon much cheaper than at Borders, in case any of you are tempted to splurge, too.

change what?

Occasionally, when I am unable to repress the thought, I wonder about what people in the workforce did before they had our modern technology. And I don't just mean word processors. We have email and telephone, not to mention the (mostly) reliable postal service. We can draft documents, circulate them to three different people for review, have a telephone conference, make further revisions, circulate again, correct a few typos, insert the correct amount, and finally send the document out for final execution (except even there we can often accept pdfs of signatured pages).

How did people do all this paperwork before? I wonder if people made fewer mistakes or if they just didn't correct as many typos. I wonder if the average time to complete and file a deed was more like six months instead of a week. If you mailed a document for someone to review, how long would you wait to hear back from them? Would you send another letter and wait two more weeks if you didn't?

I wonder.

Moving on

Trey did take down the tree. But it's still lying out next to the trash can. I don't think the trash people want it. I wonder how we're going to get rid of it.

Trey's in class this week. I'm munching on some M&M's from Kelley.

The Christmas colors had to go.

Work is piled up on my desk. I'm glad there's plenty to do.

I'm also glad that we are not in a living situation conducive to getting a cute kitty. Because I really want one right now. Maybe if I ever do get a cat, I can teach it how to use the people potty. I remember reading about cats doing that. But I wonder if you can really teach them how to flush. Ew.

I've started using my mixers. Bread, cookies, waffles, muffins. Mmm.

Trey has a chest of drawers for his mountains of clothes! I just cleaned it the other day. It looks nice. Thanks, Dad.

The end.

salad

Our Christmas tree is still up. I wouldn't let Trey take it down when we got back from our Christmas travels because I didn't feel I had spent enough time with it. Now he's lost the motivation to do anything with it, and I'm beginning to wonder if it will ever come down. Eventually all the needles will.

I actually read an entire book over New Year's weekend. I was beginning to fear I'd never accomplish that feat again, so my success came just in time to prevent my despair. The book is Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. It's a story about mother-daughter relationships, tradition, respect, and lots of the personal identity questioning themes typical of postmodern fiction. The story is related through first-hand narratives: four Chinese women who have emmigrated to San Francisco and their daughters who have grown up in America. There is one narrative at the end told by the protagonist's (of sorts) father. It's the only account from a man's perspective.

Woohoo! for new posts!