Tonight English Club meets at Tir Na Nog shpub.

Shpub is a new contraction I made up meaning Irish Pub. I am going to try to use it thirty times tonight in conversation.

Learned of a new word today: stemwinder, meaning a rousing speech. Here’s why.

Before [Adrien Philippe's] invention, watches were wound just the same way as clocks, using a key. This was an awkward procedure and wise watch owners kept the key on their fob chain to be sure of not losing it.

Oh really? Now I have to go learn another new word: fob. I feared that was some kind of racial slur, but no; it is merely a vest pocket.

Anyhow, the text continues:

M Philippe added a knurled knob attached to a rod (or stem), which was permanently connected to the spring mechanism, making it much easier to wind.

Now that is fascinating. Now I have to go look up knurled. That means gnarled or milled, having multiple small grooves, as in the grooves on the side of the ol’ watch stem, if you get my drift. They put those grooves in the edges of coins to deter shifty sneaky folks from sneakily shaving trace amounts off metal off the coins.

And to think that I thought stemwinding refers to apples. As children, we would wind the apple stem and go down the alphabet. The letter you called when the stem comes off is the initial of the name of the person you would marry. If it were true, everyone would be married to someone whose name starts with “g”. This reminds me of Frank Zappa, who of course married Gail.

LWD — First weekend

Confound this miserable cold weather. On my way home from work ’round lunchtime today I observed closely the faces of my fellow city dwellers and they all looked like, WTF? It’s Ju-friggin’-ly for Pete’s sake.
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The other day, I believe while sitting at English Club, the topic of tapeworms came up. Sarah mentioned seeing a documentary where one fellow had a tapeworm removed–he said he wanted to get rid of it before he got married–and afterwards they took it and stretched it out full-length on the front lawn. It was about three meters long.

I was reminded of that because it is the birthday of Marcel Rroust, French writer known for writing about the intrinsic minutae of his everyday fictionalized life and writing some of the longest sentences in the history of literature.
And get this (quoted from the Writer’s Almanac):

The longest sentence in the book, printed in average type and arranged
in a single line, is more than thirteen feet in length.

Which reminds me mighty of a tapeworm.

I’ll resume regular blogging tomorrow or the next day. In the meantime,

Sammie’s Obituary
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There has been a death in my family.

Sammy (back row, center), the younger brother of my sister-in-law, Jen, died yesterday in hospital. He was taken to the hospital last Saturday to be treated for pancreatitis, an inflamation of the pancreas. He died of an ensuing heart failure around noon.

Sammy was in his early twenties.

LWD v2 4
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Lil Wee v.2 day three
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