Jan. 13th, 2003

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Thursday, an old and good friend--the original Owlet--came into town for a whirlwind visit. I figured she'd be spoken for most of the weekend, but early on I had dibbed dancing with her on Saturday night. Later, when I saw she was also free for dinner, I made plans to bring Monshu along. She used to work for him--and, in fact, is inextricably intertwined with the story of our romance (to the degree that she claims to be our Emma). Then, when she asked for company shoe-shopping earlier in the afternoon, I volunteered for that as well.

We got a late start because she is a SLEEP HOG. I suggested Meinl to get us caffein-charged. (Besides, I haven't been there in, like, two whole weeks.) Halfway through a two-hour conversation, when I pointed out that we were supposed to be out shopping, she said what she really wanted to do was spend time with me and shopping while doing it was just a bonus. I was so farklempt!

Still, we had a date to keep with Monshu, so we shuffled off to Bicker Park and the Fluevog store, where nothing she wanted was on sale. It wasn't a washout, though, since the junk shop up the block was mad fun. Great collection of old hats, china, knicknacks, and estate jewellery. How great? I actually bought a piece. Me, who generally shops for non-legibles non-quaffables only at gunpoint! [livejournal.com profile] bunj, you have got to check this place out. It's worth it if only to see the strange thing in the hand-held coffin.

I was so chuffed at negotiating a discount on the brooch that I would've been willing to plump for a cab, but the busses actually got us to Sidetrack without much bother. The place was damn quiet. I guess I've never been there on a weekend afternoon where there was no planned event before. The highlight of this visit was a vitally necessary remake of "Stuck in the Middle with You", featuring a video that wedded Reservoir Dogs to Cabaret.

Then off to Ethiopian Diamond for dinner. Sadly, they let me down. Every meal we'd ever had there had been wonderful up until the time we had guests along. (This is exactly what happened to us with the now-dead Du Yee.) They served us tough lamb. It was no disaster--everything was a tasty as ever--but now I'll live in fear that one of my readers will eat there on my recommendation and be disappointed.

At dinner, it looked like people were fading. Owlet admitted that she "might not make it until two". So we nixed the dancing and sent Monshu home. (He was asleep within 20 minutes, he tells us.) Then I finally got someone to come to Turkish Bakery with me! Two people, actually, Owlet and her friend the Masseur. The combo was still playing, I jolted down a Turkish coffee, and the conversation fatefully turned to linguistics.

We stayed up until 3:30. The restaurant closed at midnight and we went back to the Masseur's, where Owlet was staying, to continue the conversation. His wife joined us, saying she was "probably going to go to bed soon", but with us until the last. I wasn't about to try to get home that late, so I shared the fold-out with Owlet. (She said, "Are you going to sleep with me?" and I told her, "Only if you promise to be weird and distant with me in the morning.")

As a result, I got swept into brunch plans with Umm `Ata'allah, her husband, and their baby at Wishbone and, thence, into visiting the Umm `Ata'allah household. I wanted so badly to nap that I was slumped on the floor of their living room and lost all track of time. Shortly before it became time to get Owlet to the airport, she started making up a song for baby `Ata'allah on the fly. She sang a verse about a cow and handed the next one to me, but I wasn't up to it, so I passed to Abu `Ata'allah. He's a Gilbert & Sullivan baritone, so he kept lurching into patter song, but alternating verses kept us on track. After a while, I joined in, and before we were all helpless with laughter, cannibalism, bisexuality, and murder had decimated cattle and farmers.

We said our goodbyes and Abu `Ata'allah generously gave me a ride back to Monshu's. It was there that I realised that, except for bathroom breaks, I had been joined at the hip to Owlet for more than 24 hours straight. Despite having my mouth open most of that time, I still feel like there's no end to what I want to say to her. Damn!
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Somehow, I managed to forget not only how gifted Owlet is with languages, but how interested she is in them. Her strongest foreign language is Russian and I tend to think of Russophiles as culture vultures, not language geeks. But at the Bakery on Saturday night, after a spirited discussion of usage (where I did my best to advance the descriptivist case--but what chance did I have trying to convince an editor?), she happened to ask me how hard it would be to learn Irish.

I considered this a moment and said, "Maybe for you it wouldn't be that difficult." I then launched into a rather technical explanation of a surprising parallel between Irish and Russian. (In short, they both share a basic contrast between unpalatalised and palatalised consonants. In Russian, they're called "hard" (tvjordyj) and "soft" (mjagkij), respectively; in Irish, "broad" (leathan) and "slender" (caol).) Having mastered this distinction in Russian, she has a leg up on most English speakers when it comes to learning one of the most difficult aspects of Irish pronunciation.

Still, I warned her that I've known at least a half-dozen people (including myself) who have talked about learning Irish, but only one who's actually done it. (Oddly enough, he's a Mumbai native.) I mentioned some of its funkier features (forgetting entirely to talk about one of my favourites, the conjugated prepositions!) Far from being detered, she assiduously memorised all the Irish phrases I could remember to teach her. (Inevitably, I got one of these wrong: it's mo mhuirnín, not *mhuirín. Gabhaim pardún agat!)

In fact, she did this not only for Irish, but also German and Welsh. Every hour or so on Sunday, she would turn to me, say carefully "Schreckgespenst, Rhiannon, Arianrhod, Llew Llaw Gyffes, fy anghariad, fy annwyl", and wait for my corrections. By the time we said goodbye, there weren't any. Who wouldn't love to have a student like that? Now you see why I felt like I had hardly begun to say what I wanted to her!

(BTW, I promised her the URL for Focal na Lae, a damn handy site for Irish I just stumbled across recently. You less-academic types might want to check it out for the Curse Engine. Note, a chuisle mo chroí, that mo "my" can be substituted for a in the list of terms of endearment. They both happen to take the same initial mutation.)
muckefuck: (Default)
Q: What's more cringeworthy than seeing mention in News of the Weird of a "Librarians in Leather" calendar available from some public library in New Jersey?
A: Having an article on said calendar forwarded to the e-mail list at work a month later.


However, this does provide the inspiration for the Stupidest Poll Ever: If your workplace[*] were to put together a pinup calendar, how hard would it be to find twelve people that could/would/should be in it?


[*] Those of you what work in your underwear (y'all know who y'are), substitute "industry".

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