Not much happening here

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

Amazing ... I've never tried one of those 'cut and paste' quiz things before. It seem to work!

It feels like summer today. The window thermometer tells a false tale of temperatures in the low 100s, and a person sitting outside near an open window would feel a cool breeze emanating from the house. Rhubarb Tapioca is cooling in the fridge, and football-playing boys have been warned away from punting practice in my already-planted garden.

I am currently trying to read Boswell's Life of Johnson. I am finding it incredibly dry going, and almost read myself into a nap this afternoon. The book is a biography of sorts, but I am caught in the nitty gritty and not learning much, except that Johnson seemed to be having a hard time ekeing out an existence translating books and writing freelance while having seizures and an incredibly undervalued intellect. From the praises I've heard sung of him, he seems to be a pattern for anyone who would wish to be educated ... but the book isn't giving any useful support for that. A good bit of the problem is likely my total lack of appreciation for nuances in poetry and his skill in translating Homer. Here's a sample of the book: It has been circulated, I know not with waht authenticity, that Johnson considered Dr. Birch as a dull writer, and said of him, "Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties." That the literature of this country is much indebted to Birch's activity and diligence must certainly be acknowledged. We have seen that Johnson honoured him with a Greek Epigram, and his correspondence with him, during many years, proves that he had no mean opinion of him." (Here follows an example of his correspoendence with him, which references 4 individuals I've never heard of and Johnson's publisher, plus a word from the vocabulary quiz above.) I hope the book gets better.

Meanwhile, I read the whole of Henty's The Young Carthaginian. I hesitate to think what the book would be like if written in Boswell's style.

Knitting proceeds apace. The back of my Pink Thing is completed, the front has languished while I read Henty, and the Danish Socks are 1/8th done.

For profound things to think on (and how beneficial the lack of electricity can be), I will point you to Cindy's blog entry of a few days ago. The electricity part comes in because we had no power for half of church on Sunday, and it was delightful. I'll be the first to admit that electricity and electrical gadgets come in handy ... but the world is a lot less busier without them in my opinion.