WORD OF THE DAY

"Tatterdemalion"
Definition: n. A person wearing ragged or tattered clothing; a ragamuffin.
adj. Ragged; tattered.

A NEW SAYING

Here's a phrase I woke up with, bouncing around in my head:
"Don't poop your tutu."

It would be used thusly: "Hey dude, it's just a spider. Don't poop your tutu."

NICKNAME FOR SCOOTS

Scoots' nickname of the day:
"Wee Willie Weenie."

WANNAMAKER

The other night at Mom's house, Dan asked Anthony the origin of the last name "See," which started a casual little conversation about name origins. My mom nonchallantly mentioned that her maiden name, "Wann," was most likely shortened from "Wannamaker."

I felt blind-sided. I'm sure no one has ever told me that before. For some reason I was left reeling from this info, and it keeps bouncing around in my head. I remember finding out when I was a teen that "Kovac" was Americanized by dropping the "h" from the end, so it was originally "Kovach." That seemed like stunning, fascinating news at the time. But the difference between "Wann," and "Wannamaker" is even BIGGER. WTF?!

The name "Wann" always seemed so unusual and interesting. "Wannamaker" is pretty cool, too, though. I know this isn't as weird as finding out you were adopted, or that your father isn't really your biological father or something, but names are IMPORTANT. I just can't believe nobody ever thought to mention this before!

So I actually come from the Slovak "Kovach" family, and the French/American Indian/etc "Wannamaker" family. Not sure how this affects my life, but I'm sure it's important.

SURGICAL

The other morning when I opened the library, one of the students walked in, looked down, and said, "Um... whose inflated surgical glove is this?"

Sure enough, there it was on the floor, like a bulging powder white udder. I said, "I KNOW that was not here last night when I left."

I don't know what the hell happened in there overnight, but I jammed the inflated glove into the small trash can under my desk. I didn't have the heart to pop it.

DONUT LADY

Oh, mysterious Donut Lady.
The way you confuse me with your broken English, but most of all
the way you insist you recognize me
from long ago...
You claim I used to come in with my mother when I was very small
But I don't remember that at all. My mother preferred bakery shop pastries.
I cringed as I walked through the door this morning with my baggie full of quarters
a poor man's donut fund
As feared, you insisted once again that you remembered my mother and me
This time, though...
This time you dropped a few details, such as
I am an only child
My mother keeps her hair short
(Both true)
Could it be, Donut Lady?
Could it really be that you are a face from my past, once forgotten
but discovered again?
Or is it just that all Gaijin look alike...?

SICK

The library was filled with sneezing, coughing, nose-blowing kids the last few days. So much so that it creeped me out, like I was in the plague ward of a hospital. Last night I woke up wheezing at 1:30 am with a seriously runny nose (it meant business), punctuated by occasional sneezing and coughing. Fuckin' sucks, man. By 3:30 am I was making a trip to CVS to get Zyrtec-D. Anthony was awake, too, with his usual insomnia. Having to put on shoes & socks and a jacket in the middle of the night and make a cold foray into the outside world is totally bogus. There were only 3 visible employees in CVS, none of them paying attention to me, or even willing to feign customer service. I thought about rewarding myself with a candy bar from the front counter, but felt too weary to eat it.
Called the automated absence line at 5:00 am. Then I dragged myself in here to the computer, figured I'd better email Marilyn to her home & work email, warn her that I'm out sick. Hope she doesn't run around like a librarian with her technician cut off.
In other news, I just found out yesterday that one of our teachers got nasty with a female student, and is at least getting fired, possibly going to jail. It's a particularly messy scandal since this teacher happens to be married to another teacher on our campus, and they have 4 or 5 kids, one of them with Downs Syndrome. Also, apparently there was some weirdly inappropriate situation going on since last year, in which the female student in question had been temporarily living with this teacher and his wife, and I'm not sure why. They were "tutoring" her or something, but obviously he ascribes to a very broad definition of "tutor."

CRICKET

I peed on a cricket yesterday.