Local Animals: Squirrels still eating the half-loaf of Country White I gave them yesterday

Word of the Day: guacamole: ai ai ai ai ai!!!

Photo of the Day:

ghghfdshf

Note: I finally understand the Ryan Gosling craze. He’s been everywhere the last few seasons and always struck me as this off-puttingly stoic Handsome Young Narcissus. I figured that was it but hadn’t seen him in anything yet.

Suddenly in the last week I’ve seen Blue Valentine (painful and terrific, its honesty reminding me of All the Real Girls, which is a VERY high compliment) and Drive (stylish and strangely potent, with Gosling bringing serious depth to a deadpan character). I have Lars and the Real Girl waiting on the DVR. What impresses me most about him is his subtlety. He’s amazingly effective with the tiniest gestures and expressions, one of those actors who does just enough to let the viewer project their own emotions into his characters. He brings to mind young Pacino and DeNiro and even certain British actors like Anthony Hopkins. Great work happening from this guy. I get the impression he’s about where Heath Ledger was before The Dark Knight, poised for a breakout performance that’ll convince everybody he’s something really special.

In sum, I’m fun-tacking a Gosling picture in my locker ASAP.

Music: College, A Real Hero (feat. Electric Youth)

Local Animals: Stoic squirrel beneath empty bird feeder; I tossed him half-a-loaf of unwanted Country White

Word of the Day: fusty: smelling of mildew or decay; old-fashioned or antique

Photo of the Day:

This is a dead Daddy Long Legs covered in fungus, which is apparently common but freaked us out upon discovery.

!!??

Music: Corelli’s Follia 

A. Father/son bonding and communication

B. Proof that grownups are not only flawed and embarrassingly ignorant, but that it’s OK as a person to admit this

C. Sight of Dad looking stuff up, which will theoretically enforce the virtues of research and curiosity

D. Learning opportunities for both of us

E. Frequent hilarity and fascination with the world

F. New source of blog posts (this one just occurred to me recently)

Here’s one he asked the other night as we were driving past an ambulance:

WHY DO THEY CALL IT A STRETCHER?

I’d never thought to question this. Perhaps because a person stretches out upon it, I thought, but then we got to thinking: hospitals have chairs with wheels and they don’t call them sitters; they call them the most logical name imaginable. So why not “wheel bed” instead of stretcher? Only later did I wonder if the stretching part refers to the accordion-style pop-up function of the bed, but even then…it’s like calling a wheelchair a spoker in reference to its spokes.

The actual answer? According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it is in fact named after the act of stretching people out along its length. The stretcher was named before it had wheels, when it was simply a canvas frame, so I suppose the term isn’t so weird after all. And I feel dumb in retrospect, having ignored the existence of wheel-less stretchers (still common, of course) when he asked.

But so it goes with Stump Dad.

Local Animals: We had robins here on Saturday. Hey, remember the end of Blue Velvet?

Bonus Video About That Troubling Robin at the End of Blue Velvet, In Which We Learn That the Robin Had Been Killed by a School Bus Only Days Prior to Filming:

Blue Velvet Robin

Word of the Day: fecundity: the quality or power of producing abundantly

Photo of the Day: 

It's Dangruus

Pixies Lyric of the Day: There is this old man / Who spent so much of his life sleeping / That he is able to keep awake for the rest of his years – “Dig for Fire”

News: My parents’ dachshund Howard forgot his new squeaky dragon here at the house last night. Before driving over and leaving it in their mailbox, I wrapped the dragon in old wrapping paper, then more wrapping paper, then more wrapping paper, and then stuffed it all into a flap-top cardboard box (for kitchen garbage bags). On the box I left a taunting note, written on a Post-It: “Dear Howard: Your dragon is inside…if you can get it.” This will delight him.

Music: Smiths, “Meat Is Murder”

Local Animals: Everyone venturing into the fog disappears. Your guess is as good as mine.

Word of the Day: word: a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning

Photo of the Day: 

I Met a Harlem Wizard Quite Inadvertently Yesterday

Pixies Lyric of the Day: Forevergreen / I know she’s here / In California / I can see the tears / Of shastasheen — “Velouria”

Today’s Work: Fighting this cold before it wins any serious ground

Music: Cat Power, Werewolf

Local Animals: Searching for animal tracks with my son this morning, we were assisted by local hoodlum cat Lady (or possibly Baby; they look alike), who made quite a few prints of her own

Word of the Day: ersatz: cheap imitation

Photo of the Day: 

Colonial Desktop

Pixies Lyric of the Day: Bloody your hands on a cactus tree / Wipe it on your dress and send it to me – “Cactus”

Today’s Work: Refamiliarizing myself with the novel I’m about to start editing in February, since I haven’t looked at the thing in almost half a year

Music: Handel, Alcina Suite (track 104)

Local Animals: Crows eating a fresh skunk carcass

Word of the Day: ebullient: zestfully enthusiastic; boiling or bubbling

Photo of the Day: 

Polypodium Barometz

The above photo is not a wormy sheep but a Chinese fern, or “vegetable lamb”, which you can read about at Chethem’s Library

Pixies Lyric of the Day: Your Irish skin / Looks Mexican / Our love is rice and beans and horses’ lard — “Bone Machine”

Of Note: I’m continuing PT exercises to strengthen supporting muscles in my legs to alleviate a bum knee. On Monday I used the gym’s hip abduction/adduction machines. I wasn’t terribly sore yesterday but today, good God, I feel like I was beaten in the private area without the private area, strictly speaking, getting hit. This kind of pain generally means it’s working.

Now let’s all of us together take a moment to enjoy the term “hip abduction”.

Today’s Work: More painting in the kitchen, writing a scene, reading Stewart O’Nan

Music: Elephant Revival, “Ring Around the Moon”

Yard Animals: Crows walking around eating any old thing

Word of the Day: bunkum: empty of insincere talk; claptrap

Photo of the Day: 

Robert Ross, Oakwood Cemetery, Troy, NY

Yesterday’s Victory: Got back to working out, read a bunch

Yesterday’s Failure: Scatter

Today’s Work: Painting in the kitchen

Music: Biber, Mystery Sonatas

Yard Animals: A squirrel doing grand acrobatics to access seed in the birdfeeder.

Word of the Day: desultory: without a plan; haphazard or random

Note: Whenever I hear this word, I mistakenly associate it with “sultry” and picture a buxom woman, reclining with her gin, in the kind of late-night murky jazz bar I wouldn’t typically frequent. I’m not a fan of bars or jazz these days. Desultory women, on the other hand…but even there, no. My wife is QUITE the planner.

Photo of the Day:

Gargoyle

Yesterday’s Victory: It was Sunday. I took a victory day off.

Yesterday’s Failure: I’ve really dropped the fitness ball in general lately.

Today’s Work: Reading, beginning an essay

Music: The Band Perry, “If I Die Young“. I’m finding myself drawn to country music of late, which is amusingly unexpected. I blame our first-grader.