one of mom's british internet friends mentioned a bunch of canada geese in his backyard that were getting a bit annoying... which, naturally, got us capering off to find out how the hell canada geese ended up in england. sort of natural, really, with canada a former province... but strangely, upon a google search, nearly all the websites that are the slightest bit on-topic that i found by querying on "history u.k. canada goose" have near-identical wording: "canada geese were first introduced to Britain in 1665 as an addition to the waterfowl collection of king charles II at st. james’ park."

i suspect a b.b.c. conspiracy.

but my challenge is thus: can anyone out there find an active sentence structure on this? who brought it over in 1665? famous explorer or undistinguished entrepreneur? any big names or high adventure in this tiny piece of the great species exchange?

ah, the entertainment value of manchester when bonnaroo's not in town...

who am i trying to fool, i realize that most of the world does not enthusiastically obsess over these sorts of topics... but hey, i'll tell you anyway.

in french, one of the nice almost-always-true rules is that if they can't make a noun plural sound nice when adding an -s, hey, they just change the original noun. wait, what am i saying, it's not like the -s gets pronounced anyhow, but nonetheless, there's some sort of aesthetic standard. like a lot of the latin derivatives... paramecium becomes "paramécie," for example. (i guess that one's not real roman latin, but it's got to be at least the academic pretend-latin that got so popular during the enlightenment and such...) unless the singular ends in -s, -x, or -z, in which case it works like the english deer - one deer two deer, un nez deux nez. off the top of my head, i can't think of any other exceptions... i'm sure they're there, but they're a heckuva lot less common than in english. and pronouns don't count, mind you.

**THEN TWO DAYS LATER, MY BRAIN CAME BACK... i forgot about that whole -eau or -al turns into -eaux family. gateau, gateaux, animal, animaux... i guess it was just sound difference that was bothering me. certainly don't know any other -o to -i plurals... **

so i was surprised to find the phrase "ses soli interminables" in the middle of le monde's review of school of rock. which it seems they're renaming rock academy o'er that way. (i never did get the translating of english titles into other english titles. and they liked it, by the way.)

but yeah. so solo's an exception to a seldomly-violated rule. hurrah. well, really, the dictionary says you can go either way - solos or soli - but i was impressed. and meanwhile mom's screaming at me for hesitating to leave the computer for lunch, so i'd best scurry off... (at the parents' -- that's why i've got internet access.)

ugh, a million times ugh. i feel like i've been hit in the stomach. here goes the next round...

thanks so much to all of you who sent warm fuzzies and other helpful info earlier...

dad's out of the hospital now. they never figured out anything definitive, but they ruled out all of the really urgent stuff. and the pain subsided. best guess is that it was some kind of spasm, maybe colic. there are appointments for more testing and such, but we're all just glad to have him home. i'll prob'ly head back to cookeville sometime tomorrow.

mom called about 11 a.m. yesterday. dad had been taken to the hospital from work via ambulance. at the time, the telephone calls claimed chest pains... thank goodness it's not that.

so i headed to manchester. dad's got "acute abdominal pain of undetermined origin." the kind that seeps through even the most potent pain killers. we have a whole array of things ranging from mild yet painful to hellishly terrifying that could turn out to be the origin. but they eliminated most of the worst - aneurysms and that sort of thing - yesterday in the emergency room. they finally put him in a real room with a relatively comfortable bed around 9 p.m. last night.

i hope... i hope they can diagnose something mostly innocuous and get him patched up and out of there soon. i hope i can go home soon, too -- it's great to get to talk to my parents, even in such poor circumstances, but i'm supposed to be moving this week. if it takes more than another day for everything to stabilize, i guess i can always call the landlord and request a few more days. i feel silly and self-centered for even considering things like this, but they're there.

anyways, hope, hope, hope. mom's been at the hospital since early this morning, and i s'pose i should get going and get there too.

officially unemployed.

further proof of ineptitude: i didn't think to switch to waterproof mascara for my last day of work. they had a card and a cake, and it was lovely, and i always hate saying goodbyes. my replacement is more or less fully trained now, so i spent a lot of the day bored, excised from the hustle... just a few answers to questions about my accounts, a few goodbye e-mails to people who i frequently worked with over the phone. nobody got to leave the office until i had a photo, so at least i get illustrations for any stories of the era that work their way into my repertoire... then it was raining cats and dogs and mice and frogs when i left. so needless to say, raccoon eyes by the time i got home.

my hair's red. really red. much redder than intended. i was going for "reddish brown" in an attempt to dye it back to its natural shade except not quite so boring... because roots just aren't much fun. methinks they forgot the brown part.

maybe i can wash it a few times and make it go away...

sitting here in my only-mildly-cozy yet awfully familiar apartment... and thinking, "this time next week, i won't live here anymore." maybe i'll be here to clean, but it won't be mine. my desk won't be in this corner, the bookshelf not in that one... no job to dread, no nine o'clock phone calls or karaoke nights to anticipate... no trying to trick the faucet into enough hot water to make a decent bath, no drowning out the carpet's mild moldy smell with candles and incense, no trips to the laundromat in the middle of the night.

in a way, i'm watching a piece of myself disintegrate. flaked off, scorned, but i always end up mourning in the end... just a tinge of nostalgia, not a true desire to paste myself back together.

why does a week seem so many magnitudes smaller than two?

i should start packing.

it's early, but i'll be out of town for the real event...

*1 hr later - update* um, nevermind. my wonderful and incredible boyfriend decided to drive here instead. hurrah!

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.