Another Day

deKooning – Woman III

de Kooning – Woman V

Let’s start with updateyness – no ultra definitive news on my penthouse level meningioma garden BUT my early December Iceland trip is safe. IF I need surgery, it can wait until I get back. PHEW!

Meantime, I’ll have Jen and Ten fill in the info on my checks for monthly bills before I scrawl my John Hancock. No one expects signatures to be legible, right?

Regarding my impaired, at the mo, drawing abilities – possibly now’s a GREAT time to indulge my color field/abstract expressionist/de Kooning-esque impulses. This could be FUN and interesting!

And now on to weird and funny shit I’ve recently come across. 

Did you know that a "butt" is (or was) an actual measuring unit for wine and whisky? Truth! My first question, WHOSE butt? I mean, fer Bast’s sake, there are big-ass butts (such as mine but, HEY, it’s a beautifully rounded one!) and teeny tiny ones (like Jen’s – also nice and hemispherical) and prolly a lot of sizes in between.

If you drank a Donna sized butt-load of wine, you'd OD on the grape. A Jen sized butt–load? You'd get a nice sociable buzz

After a tiny bit of etymology sleuthing I found:

A) wine and whisky were put in barrels (the butts of those happy inebriants) whose sizing was loose/approximate. Prolly the coopers had a wee dram or six before heading into the old barrel factory for the day.
B) the giggle inspiring term comes from Old French (bot "barrel, wine-skin”) and Italian botte (barrel).

The unit of measure’s name origin may be desperately dull but it’s way fun to twist, to take off from. 

Me, ordering from a lovely barkeep: Hi, I’ve had a rough day. Bring me an assload of Jamo and keep ‘em coming.

For more deets check out this post on Gizmodo.
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While taking a shortcut into town the other day we passed the evocatively named Cemetery Road. Yeah, it was the name of a street bordering an old boneyard. It conjures poetry, song and horror movies. It also reminds me of the most favorite of places I lived as a wee, eight year old kiddle. This was when we were in the teeny-ass town of Townsend, Massachusetts. Our house, (where I had my very own room!!!) was across the street from the hamlet's vast garden of dead people. In winter I’d ice-skate on the low-lying ground there. It was safe and meant that mia madre didn’t need to walk me down to the burg’s pond.

Our crib was also just down the lane from the historic Old Burying Ground. I LOVED this place! When on walks with Daddy, we’d take out paper and charcoal and make rubbings of the beautifully allusive markers.

My fave part of these places? They were quiet, peaceful.
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Last time we were in Western PA to visit Vati, I was once again struck by all the interesting and odd place names.  Like Blawnox (The name, Blawnox, is derived from the Blaw-Knox Company, which had a manufacturing plant there providing much of the town's employment. Blawnox had been called Hoboken. I prefer Hoboken. ), Slate Lick (???) and Hamar (founders were pining for the fjords of home?). Then there’s Fox Chapel. Was this town named for a small reynard and vixen house of worship? And Methodist Hill. Was this the site of a burial ground for the dearly departed of Methodist persuasion? Dunno but there’s a quilting studio  there.

Hmm, that reminds me – gonna get down into the 40s tonight. Time to toss another quilt on the cot.