Saturday, November 15, 2008

Ducks and fairies and funny words

It was such a beautiful, mild sunny day when I set foot out of my flat this afternoon I stood on my front steps, and almost flung my arms wide and said "Aaaaaaah!" to the world.

As I walked to the end of my court it hit me again that I am going to get to stay in my flat for another year and I couldn't help grinning like a loony. Then I crunched some very crispy leaves on the footpath and felt very, very happy.

I had a nice sleep in this morning, although I woke up with my handbag on the floor beside the bed, which is not where it usually lives. Sleep walking again...

I saw a funny little flotilla of ducks on the river as I crossed the bridge today. Don't usually see ducks swimming in formation on the river (above).

In the park on the other side of the river I saw a very large specimen of what my brother and I used to call a fairy when we were kids (below). It was nearly as big as the palm of my hand. Did you used to pick them and blow away the fluffy bits and make a wish? I might have done that if there weren't any people around...

When I came back past later in the afternoon, the big fairy was gone! Gone! It was quite a windy day. I hope Mr Wind made a wish.


My wordy

I learned some interesting words playing Free Rice at work yesterday. Two of them fall into that category of words that sound like they should mean the opposite of what they do (like pulchritude).

Sybaritic means luxurious, but it sounds to me like it should mean scabby or infested with lice or something similarly icky.

Fulgurous means dazzling, but I reckon it sounds like it means something like "bearing fungus". "My, what a fulgurous smile you have!" doesn't sound very complimentary, does it?

Other words I learnt -

* to crepitate is to crackle. I ate some pop rocks this week that made my brain crepitate.

* a bleb is a bubble. Blowing blebs just doesn't have the same ring to it. Sounds like a euphemism for farting.


My next book...

For any word lovers - or people who love word lovers - here is a book I read about in the latest Readers Feast Bookstore Book Guide today -
Foyle's Philavery by Christopher Foyle. "Philavery is 'an idiosyncratic collection of uncommon and pleasing words'." I must have it. I'm crepitating with anticipation. There is also a follow up called Foyle's Further Philavery, which is quite a tongue twister, isn't it?


Blog drinks

I went to a great new bar in the city last night called Seamstress (new to me, I mean). There was a cute bartender with a sexy accent and a nice breeze coming through open windows. The walls were painted dark and the ceiling draped with Asian-style fabric. A row of colourful Cheong-Sams hung over the bar. I met up with some people from the Ask Sam blog again. There were some new faces and some familiar ones. I particularly enjoyed catching up with Karma again, who is very kind and lovely, not least because she thinks I'm funny! Hello Karma if you're reading! (We have a tendency to keep calling each other by our blog de plumes.)

Speaking of being funny, like most people, I love to have a laugh, but I realised while lying face down on my osteopath's table a few weeks back that I love it even more when I make someone laugh. I was chatting away to him about stuff and he laughed out loud at a couple of things I said. It was thrilling! If only I were funny enough to make a living out of it....

I should stop here. Oh, just one more thing. Mmmmm....chocolate gelati.

Got any funny/peculiar words for me? What will your next book purchase be? Do you like to make people laugh?


3 comments:

Julian said...

I love days like that. :) Let's hear it for nature. ;) I've had a couple of those moments, with nature and "life is going well" combined, lately. It's a good feeling!

As big as the palm of your hand hey? Don't think I've ever seen one that big. Yep, I used to make wishes with those things quite a bit. :)

I'm with you on Sybaritic and Fulgurous; they don't sound very nice, do they? Fulgurous makes me think of sulfurous for some reason, too. Blowing blebs doesn't sound brilliant, either (makes me think of "pleb", as well!).

Darn; I missed a blog meet. :| Oh well, I suppose I can't complain seeing as I was in Sydney wandering around and then watching a fantastic thunderstorm across the harbour at the time. (The only downside was that I wasn't expecting it and didn't have my umbrella with me, so I had to catch a taxi back to the hotel! It was that or get soaked on a fairly long walk.) Glad to hear you had a good time at it though. :) (And yes, Karma is cool. :) )

It's nice to be able to make someone laugh. It's a mixture of knowing that someone finds you funny, and that you're making them smile and feel good for a moment, I think. Also, there's kind of an empathic connection between you and someone else when you're both finding whatever it was funny. I seem to be making people laugh more and more these days (usually not at me ;) ), and I'm really enjoying the feeling. I don't think I'll quit my day job any time soon, though!

Jayne said...

Hey Julian. Thanks for showing some comment love to this poor neglected post. ;)

I'm sure there will be another log meet soon, so don't worry.

Sounds like you're enjoying Sydney - even getting caught in the rain is probably quite a novelty for you these days.

Yes, you're right about the pleasure of making someone laugh -it's a compliment for you, a little gift to someone else and a nice little moment of connectedness between the two of you. It's no wonder that it feels so good.

Julian said...

No problem. We couldn't have it feeling lonely and neglected, now could we? ;) (Okay, I'm going to bed before I get any sillier. ;P )