Thank you all for your response to my little quiz about “what to post. what to post”.  I will not read out the statistics, but the general consensus was, “Let’er rip!”  So I will let her rip.

So it is that I must  introduce you to FEWTNID. (The Franklin Electronic Webster’s Third New International Dictionary). I keep this outdated unabridged wonder at my hip when I am writing. I often write sitting up in bed at night, so at the hip is entirely convenient. I have spent many ecstatic hours spelunking in FEWTNID. There are words that astound simply because there is a word for that specific thing. There are words that astound due to their evolution or derivation or the spectacularly disparate definitions. Once I open that thing up, I can be sucked down into it and only come up to steady myself in the new world it has created for me. You may not have the same lust for words as I do, so I won’t bore you with technicalities and obscure word fetish exhumations. Anyway, that’s my introduction to FEWTNID. Read this:

Poor little Tziptkeh vomited on the rug in the hallway. Is it my fault for having given her tiny scraps of raw chicken liver that I put on a small plate near my work station where the big pieces of chicken liver were being cut up and cleaned? I called her and she came running. She came straight to the plate and lapped it all up. Then she circled my legs looking up at me, groaking. So I poured the last of the juice form the chicken livers — just the dregs at the bottom of the bowl where I’d put the raw livers after rinsing and draining them. It was maybe half a teaspoon, probably less. She approached it, sniffed it which is more the feline way of inspection, evidently found it unworthy and walked away. I guessed she was full or maybe she’d had enough of raw liver and would have preferred a palate cleanser or dessert: fruit and cheese perhaps or a cat sized portion of zuppe Inglese — oh! or a sliver of baked Alaska, though the flaming brandy might be a little dramatic for her. Baked Alaska is probably the right choice but not for the reasons you might think. It’s just that we should all be enjoying Baked Alaska while it’s still a festive dessert. As time goes on and Alaska is transformed by climate change it’s going to evoke more anxiety than happy anticipation. At some point we’re going to have to rename it: Baked The Arctic:  Baked Siberia, or maybe in anticipation of unpredictable chaotic geographical climate reassignment, we should toss all reference to locations associated with frigid temperatures and focus on substance rather than place names: Baked Snowball, though that might get tragically confused with the makers of Hostess cupcakes, Ho Ho’s and Snowballs ®®®®®®®®. “Tragically,” because of the copyright lawsuit. And then we are left with Alaska’s tourist bureau needing a new culinary attraction. I’m going to suggest that by the time all this takes place Alaska will be the new Hawaii, so a special Alaskan sweet delicacy could be Mango Moose Cake. Note the importance for obvious reasons that it be called Mango Moose CAKE, not Mango Moose PIE which would have some extremely unpalatable connotations. Have had enough of this tangent? But before I yank us back to the original subject, I really must share what I tripped over in FEWTNID when checking to make absolutely sure about which pole is which: The Arctic vs. Antarctica. I know that of course. But there is always a nagging mote of insecurity that compels me to get official scholarly validation. This comes less from any doubt about the facts and more from my historic and undying doubts about my idiocy. 

“Oh you’re so sure of yourself then that you know you’re incapable of being wrong about something you’re so sure you’re right about! Well go ahead, Ms. Wise Ass, Ms. Smarty Pants, don’t look it up, but don’t come slithering to me if you make a fool of yourself.” (Note that these common references — vulgar is a better term than common — to intelligence or lack thereof put the source of your brain power in your tuchas.) So I did look it up, and that’s when I found THIS: 

“Arctic Hysteria,  n. : a form of individual and mass hysteria that is peculiar to Arctic peoples and is characterized by compulsive mimicry.”

Now this caught me by surprise. The imagery this inspires can keep going: 

1) Grainy footage of an icy wasteland, snow swirling, curling, rioting in the air. Through the clouds of snow we see the entire population of an arctic village, men, women, children of every age, all Charlie Chaplins: the bowler, the cane, the baggy pants and waistcoat three sizes to small—the characteristic mustache—all of them mimicking each other.

2) The interior of an ice house—a large family with five, six, seven children. all their friends, the parents, both the wife’s and the husband’s families, grandparents, sisters, brothers and the spouses, the cousins, the in-laws. It’s a dinner celebration. Was it something in the blubber, in the Baked Alaska, in the air? Did one infected person bring the Arctic Hysteria to the event and infect everyone else? Well, never mind and who cares where it came from because the din of conversation (if you want to call it that) is rattling the ice foundation.

“Stop imitating everything I say!”

“Stop imitating everything I say!”

“It’s not funny anymore.”

“It’s not funny anymore.”

“The game’s over!”

“The game’s over!”

“Stop it!!”

“Stop it!!”

“Go home.”

“Go home.”

“I mean it. You need to leave now.”

“I mean it. You need to leave now.”

“STOP IT!”

“STOP IT!”

This is all being repeated by everyone to everyone, and not simultaneously. No one knows  when it began or who started it (which is, by the way, another dialogue) and no one can stop. It just goes on and on until the sun comes up (which might be in six months).

A doctor is called by a neighbor who leaves town so as not to be infected. The doctor arrives and shouts, “Who started this? Can someone tell me who started this?” And the answer is swift.

“Who started this? Can someone tell me who started this?

An emergency medical team races to the scene, sirens blaring, which by the time the EMT enters the house is being mimicked by everyone in the room.

“EEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOO! EEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOO! EEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOO! WEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOO! WEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOO!

So Tziptkeh loved the first plate, tiny dots really, of raw chicken liver, but turned away from the micro teaspoon of chicken liver juice. Oh well. She padded off quietly and I continued with the dinner preparations. Then a few minutes later Meyshe and I both heard Tziptkeh in the front entrance hall, emitting deep throated sounds we’d never heard her produce before. Moans, or cat singing. Sad. She sounded miserable. I left my post to see what she was doing. Poor thing, she was arched over the rug that used to lie in the front hall of my mother’s house. I recognized that convulsive lurching of shoulders, her neck stretching, then contracting, shrinking back, forward, back. I couldn’t get to her fast enough and she retched out the chicken liver along with stomach slime. I ran for paper towels and slid them under her as she brought up the second round. She watched me curiously while I mopped up the chewed liver. Having emptied her stomach, she was immediately better. She came over to thank me, curled up under me as I scrubbed the rug. Then she trotted off. Not much later she was eager for her dinner.