“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.”
Languid is the word. Today is unhurried. The dogs and I have no intentions to move, to do anything needing energy. Both of them are napping. Nala is with me, and Henry is upstairs on my bed where I wish I were. The rain did it to us. When I heard the drops on the roof, I didn’t want to get out of bed. Outside is uninviting with dark clouds and rain. The day’s only saving grace is its warmth, 44˚. We have a high wind warning but no wind yet. Tonight’s high will be 29˚, but I don’t even care about the cold. I am staying close to hearth and home.
Yesterday was a banner day. I went to the dump. I had no choice. The trunk was filled with trash bags, most of them litter. The front and back seats had recycables. The back seat was totally covered by cardboard boxes filled with cardboard boxes. I was surprised by how quiet the dump was with few cars and no wind.
I also got a few groceries yesterday. Most were utilitarian, but I admit to apple and blueberry turnovers and a Three Musketeers. The dogs got biscuits. We were all happy.
When I was a kid, I loved being in school on a rainy day even though we had no recess. The classroom was in shadows despite the lights. The rain hit the windows. I remember they were the tallest windows stretching almost from ceiling to floor. A long stick with a curved metal piece at the top was the only way to open and shut them. The boys could use the stick, not the girls. Sometimes the pelting rain was loud and drowned out the nun, a miracle of its own, so we did quiet lessons like silent reading. I never understood that one even though it was graded. How did the nun know we were reading? The only thing I came up with was she watched our eyes moving across the pages, left to right. In my wanderings on line, I found sinistrodextral, which means reading left to right. The word has Latin roots, and with my four years of high school Latin, I can easily translate. Sinister means left and dexter means right. I suspect I’ll never have an opportunity to use this neat word. Not once in my life up to now has anyone ever asked me about reading left to right, but if someone does, I’m ready.
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January 14, 2022 at 1:07 pm
The winds were so strong during the night here that I woke up several times because the sound was so loud. No wind reached my cottage though. I thought for a while that it was thunder but no thunder was reported.
We even had sunshine during the day but I missed the most of it even though I stop working early on Fridays. Well they are guessing that we might have an hour or so of sunshine tomorrow morning so I hope I can catch some of it then 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
January 15, 2022 at 2:01 pm
Hi Christer,
Sorry for the delay in answering, but WordPress has stopped notifying me about comments.
That’s last night’s wind. My donkey and cow Christmas creatures are stallion in the front yard. I forgot about them. As soon as I got up, I checked. They are still there. We have a slight wind today.
Today is freezing but it will get warmer tomorrow. The high and low will be 30˚. Monday will be 50˚ and rainy. That sounds tropical.
Take care. Enjoy the weekend.
January 14, 2022 at 4:17 pm
Hi Kat,
Today is dry again with partly cloudy skies and at 3 PM it’s 76°. It’s colder inside my office than it is outside. 🙁
Okay, what’s the word for reading right to left? Both Hebrew and Arabic are read and written from right to left? One theory that I read was because those texts were first written on stone tablets. A right handed stone cutter would hold the chisel in his right hand and the hammer in his left hand. This would make cutting the letters easier starting from right to left.
Four years of studying a dead language has to have merits some where. 🙂 I don’t have a knack for languages. I took high school Spanish enough times that I could teach it if I could pass the course. 🙂 Interestingly, whenever I travel to a Spanish speaking country small pieces of the language come to mind. Unfortunately, not enough to carry on a conversation, but just enough to get me in trouble getting directions to the bathroom. 🙂
I went to high school in a building that was built in the 1920s and it had those huge ceiling to almost floor double hung windows. They required that pole with the hook to open and close the upper window. Today we just air condition the buildings and you can’t open a window.
January 15, 2022 at 1:56 pm
Hi Bob,
Found you!!
Yesterday was in the 40’s, relatively warm for January, but last night was freezing as is today. I had to shut the dog door as the cold windows blowing through. I am going nowhere today.
I thought I added the word. It is sinistrodextral, from the Latin roots for left and right. That’s a great reason for right to left. I never thought about stone tablets.
Latin helped my vocabulary immensely. I could and still can decipher words from their Latin prefixes and suffixes. My spoken language isn’t great, but I have such a memory that vocabulary came easily. In Ghana, one guy and I who learned the same language, Hausa, scored the highest on the language test at the end of training. I used my high school French all over French West Africa. It even got better.
St. Pat’s elementary where I went was built in 1910. I loved all the wood, the cloak room and all those high windows. No air-conditioning!