1. At my old job, I attended outcomes-based evaluation training where the presenters talked about grant applications which essentially said, "As a result of this project, democracy will flourish." I've taken to using the phrase in normal conversation (with people who have no idea where it came from) to mean any optimistic, somewhat unlikely and disproportionate result. As in, I'll block this, the stitches will smooth out, and then democracy will flourish. I used it today at work (again, with people who had no idea where it came from), and didn't realize till later that I'd accidentally meant it literally, if grandiosely--we were talking about a helping archives in post-conflict societies, and I genuinely do believe that keeping an accurate record of actions and decisions and making it accessible to regular citizens is vital to democracy (take that, current administration and your tendency to classify things at the slightest provocation!)
2. My mom, sisters and I call groundhogs (which are all over the yard of the house where I grew up) Henrys (as in, more than one Henry). This started because when we were in elementary school (I hope!), we saw a groundhog mom and several groundhog babies of unknown gender. Naturally, the mom was Henrietta and the babies were Henry or Henrietta--all called Henry for short. (No idea why we picked Henry/Henrietta rather than Patrick/Patrica, Christopher/Christine, etc.) Over time, this became the generic name for all groundhogs. The point is that I saw a Henry on my run just now--I think it might be my first New Haven Henry.
3. In related news, we saw the cutest baby opossum a couple of days ago. Young enough that it was still clean (or maybe it had just come from the salon?), sitting by the side of the road, and looking like a Disney creature. Usually we just see birds (pigeons, geese, seagulls, and ducks, depending on where we run), rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks. (My family, by the way, calls chipmunks hors d'oeuvres, after a foolish specimen who liked to sit on a flat rock like it was a serving tray.)
4. I accumulate a lot of random thoughts when I don't have anyone to talk to while I run, huh?
2 comments:
I'm sorry (well sort of) that I'm not there to listen to these random thoughts as you are running. I will be back in New Haven soon.
Kevin
Those are pretty interesting! I suppose if I was running and having nothing to do besides to use my brain, I'll come up some weird random things, too!
BTW, consider yourself tagged for a fun meme :) See my blog for details.
Post a Comment