Those hurricane pictures… oh those poor people. I have no words.
Word of the Day
concinnity, n : harmony or elegance of design, especially of literary style in adaptation of parts to a whole or to each other.
A bizarre etymology: “The Romans apparently found perfect harmony in a well-mixed drink. The cocktail in question was a beverage they called cinnus, and so agreeably concordant did they find it that its name apparently inspired the formation of concinnare, a verb meaning “to place fitly together.” English-speakers added the word in the 1500s as “concinnity.”
This etymology source (offline) is the only one that’s come up with the mixed drink thing… oh wait, here, I found this when I looked for “cinnus Roman drink”: look under item 2. Apparently cinnus was a mix of wine, honey, water and either barley or spelt. o_O
Okay, then.
Daughter at 5 Years
…found a tiny frog (and I mean the size-of-a-fingernail tiny) floating in the pool while swimming in it: “Mommy, Mommy there’s a frog!”
So Mommy got the net and rescued the frog, while Daughter watched with avid interest, and I got to explain why frogs should not swim in swimming pools, and why it will eventually hurt them. I sent her off to open the screen door so we could get the frog away from the compelling-but-otherwise-toxic body of water, and of course it jumped out, requiring me to put the net down and play “catch the tiny frog you could accidentally squish by touching it the wrong way…” Much to Daughter’s delight.
But she must have been watching very carefully because she found a second frog in the pool when she got back in… and she caught that one on her own in her cupped hands. I opened the door for her that time so she could take it out.
…and (no kidding) there were four more tiny frogs in the pool that day, and she rescued every single one: “Another frog, Mommy!” “What?” “Look!” “Well, a rescata!”
Child was very pleased by the time she got out of the pool. “I helped lots of frogs, Mommy!”
“You are a real frog rescuer,” I agreed.
But you know, it wasn’t until I saw her catching those baby frogs and carefully carrying them out that I realized that I catch frogs and carry them out. And lizards. And all sorts of other strange and slimy Florida critters. Because I hate touching those things…!
Parenthood can be a very weird mirror, reflecting you in ways you never really expect.
Creative News/Plans
This week I have a ton of administrivia to do for various projects, none of it sounds very interesting when typed out. For Black Blossom Kickstarter folks, I’m waiting on the audiobook now, hopefully that will come through soon. Audiobook people waiting for new audiobooks, I should have a new one coming in this week to approve (“Unspeakable”). Otherwise, I am going to steal time from business/marketing requirements to work on the new Jokka novel and the 3 Jaguars comics backlog. We get Earthrise later today too, watch for it!
Elsewhere (The Stay Productive Edition)
• 10 Laws of Productivity. No new advice here, but worth the refresher!
• Want More Productive Workers? Adjust Your Thermostat. Apparently humans don’t work well when it’s too hot or too cold. We’re so finicky.
Quote of the Day
You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him. – Leo Aikman
