triskellian

Frog, verb. To unravel a piece of knitting. From rip (same meaning), via "rip it" and "ribbet".

How cool is that as an etymology?

(No, this isn't new knowledge for me, but I've just decided I have to frog my silly purple hat so I can reknit it smaller, and I'm reminded that I think the word is cool enough to share.)

There's a phone call I need to make this morning. I've made about ten attempts at it now, of which about seven resulted in an engaged tone, and the other three resulted in the phone just ringing out. How is it possible to be engaged one moment and unanswered the next in an office where taking phone calls is part of the job? Grrrr.

Microsoft Word's thesaurus (yeah, yeah, I know) thinks 'insight' means 'nearby'. Grrr.

I have a hairdressing appointment this afternoon. It needs cutting anyway, and I'm probably going to get it dyed, too. The original intention was to go back to scarlet, but I'm surprised to find that I rather like my current approximately-natural dark brown, even though I've spent the last ten years avoiding it, and only returned to it because my wedding dress was red and I was worried about clashing. But I also remember how much I loved having scarlet hair. And having just given people a reason to accuse me of being sensible and grownup, I like the idea of proving that I'm not ;-)

[Poll #359265]
Disclaimer: I make no promise to abide by the results of the poll ;-) Especially if you all start saying things like "Other: green".

ETA: I should state that I don't need to have sensible-coloured hair for work purposes. In case that wasn't already obvious ;-)

My uncle emigrated to Australia when my mother was about nineteen, and visited here for the first time only a few years ago. Somehow, separated by half a world, and several years apart, they each managed to produce and raise one of two identical girls.

My cousin Jenny is about four years younger than me. We've never met, although we corresponded briefly when I was about 18. Even 'briefly' is something of an overstatement. We each wrote no more than two letters. It may only have been one. Throughout our childhoods, the only person we both knew was our mutual grandmother, who had little influence on me, and can hardly have been more influential on my cousin who she saw for six weeks every three years or so. Nevertheless, when I first met Jenny's mother, my aunt-by-marriage, she couldn't stop remarking on the similarity between us. We apparently share mannerisms, speech patters, interests, habits, traits. We work in almost identical fields. We even look alike (but her eyes are brown where mine are blue), although that's less surprising.

My uncle and aunt are just finishing their first trip here together. When they get home, they will be telling Jenny about her cousin Liz, and the great similarity between us. When Jenny next lifts herself up on the arms of her chair to enable her to cross her legs and tuck her bare feet under herself, her mother will tell her that she saw me doing the same thing in England.

I have an other self who I've never met, and it's a strange thought.

(The 'current music' is a typo that I'm letting stand because it's funny, and arguably more accurate ;-)

I just clicked this link: Girls beat boys in infant classes on the BBC home page. I was expecting it to be an article about girls being given rulers and told by the teacher to use them to hit unruly boys. But, as you'll have realised by now if you've clicked, it's an article about girls doing better than boys at infant school level.

Did I imagine the girls-hitting-boys-with-rulers story? I thought I remembered it from earlier in the week, but now I think maybe I dreamt it...

There's a little blue Fiat that lives at least part of its life in the sidestreet opposite my house where my own car lives. The reason this puzzles me is that I often pass it coming the other way when I'm driving to work. I work in a village in the middle of nowhere with no night-time employment I can think of, and there's no day-time employment visibly available in my local sidestreet. I suppose the Fiat's owner is either having a relationship with someone in my work-village and living in my sidestreet, or vice versa, but I can't help being tempted to write a polite inquiring note and tuck it behind the Fiat's windscreen wipers to ask.

There's a dark red BMW with the number plate 'LAZIO 88' which shares part of my route to work. I recognise 'Lazio' as the name of a football team, and assume '88' means '1988', but what happened then? Is the driver a Lazio fan, and that was the year they won the <mumble> cup? Is he a Lazio hater, and that was the year they suffered crushing defeat at the hands of his preferred team?

There's a middle-aged man in the village who walks his small daughter to school every day. He's short and grumpy and reminds me of my dad, in a way I find rather sweet. He carries his daughter's brightly-coloured rucksack for her.

There's an elderly man with a tiny white terrier dog, who lives just round the corner from where I work. Whether I get into work at eight or half past, he's always walking his dog on the grass verge. Today, in the rain, the dog was wearing a little coat.

I enjoy my journey to work. I like recognising fellow-travellers and watching the progress of the fields and gardens I pass. It's poppy season at the moment, has been for weeks. It started with the little wild red poppies, just a few, scattered on the verges. Then, as their numbers started to increase, the big bright pink cultivated ones appeared. Now there are complicated multi-petal poppies in lots of shades of pink and lilac and red mixed in with the simpler ones. Their flowers look almost like roses.