diplomacy and other ramblings

I swear, the first commandment of diplomatic language is: If thou hast a clause that should follow another, thou shalt reverse their order. (Thereby rendering everything "to which" and "of which" and "in which", and tying my brain in knots trying to make sure that the second half of the sentence still refers to what was said in the first half of the sentence).

Is it just me or has there been more of an advertising avalanche for February 14 this year than the last couple of years? (If you ask me, there shouldn't be one day to celebrate love in the first place. If you love, or are loved, celebrate it every day.)

I think tomorrow I'll treat myself to a trip to the used bookstore. I have some books I want to sell anyway.

It occurs to me that even if anybody wanted to buy me flowers, or if I wanted to buy them for myself, I wouldn't have anything to put them in. I still don't own any vases.

Tomorrow, by which I mean after I've slept for a while, I have to go clean up some more of my case study. I'm not sure cleaning up a shaky translation isn't more work than translating it correctly in the first place, but I was without dictionaries when I did the first draft and some of my guesses were wrong. I have what I suspect is an Anglophone's phobia; every time I run across a word in French that looks like a word in English, and I don't know for certain that it isn't a false cognate, my immediate instinct is to say it is a false cognate. So then I have to look it up, and more often than not I find out I was being overly paranoid, and kick myself, and go on translating. And then I trip over a word I know the meaning of, but doesn't mean in context what it means in the dictionary, and I kick myself for that when I find out what I did.

Nap time. My contact lenses are starting to make my eyes complain.

an appropriate poem

Because I'm silly, I present:

The Strange Case of Mr. Ballantine's Valentine, by Ogden Nash


Once upon a time there was an attorney named Mr. Ballantine.

He lived in the spacious gracious days of the nineteenth century.

Mr. Ballantine didn't know they were spacious and gracious.

He thought they were terrible.

The reason he thought they were terrible was that love had passed him by.

Mr. Ballantine had never received a valentine.

He said to his partner, My name is Mr. Ballantine and I have never received a valentine.

His partner said, Well my name is Mr. Bogardus and I have received plenty of valentines and I just as soon wouldn't.

He said Mr. Ballantine didn't know when he was well off.

Mr. Ballantine said, I know my heart, I know my mind, I know I long for a valentine.

He said here it was St. Valentine's day and when he sat down at his desk what did he find?

Valentines?

No.

I find affidavits, said Mr. Ballantine.

That's the kind of valentine I get, said Mr. Ballantine.

Mr. Bogardus said that affidavit was better than no bread.

Mr. Ballantine said that affidavit, affidavit, affidavit onward, into the valley of death rode the six hundred.

Mr. Bogardus said that any man who would rhyme "onward" with "six hundred" didn't deserve any affidavits at all.

Mr. Ballantine said coldly that he was an attorney, not a poet, and Mr. Bogardus had better take the matter up directly with Lord Tennyson.

Mr. Bogardus said Oh all right, and speaking of lords, he couldn't remember who was the king before David, but Solomon was the king affidavit.

Mr. Ballantine buried Mr. Bogardus in the cellar and went out in search of love.

Towards evening he encountered a maiden named Herculena, the Strongest Woman in the World.

He said, Madam my name is Mr. Ballantine and I have never received a valentine.

Herculena was delighted.

Mr. Ballantine nearly burst with joy.

She flexed her biceps.

She asked Mr. Ballantine to pinch her muscle.

Mr. Ballantine recovered consciousness just in time to observe the vernal equinox.

He thought she said bustle.

She said, My name is Herculena the Strongest Woman in the World, and I have never received a valentine either.

Mr. Ballantine and Herculena decided to be each other's valentine.

All was merry as a marriage bell.