« irritations and joys | Main | book sale »

Thursday, October 02, 2003

the grouchies, and a funny

I feel kind of grumbly and grouchy today. I don't know exactly why. I think it has something to do with the fact that I got myself roped into taking the neighbor ladies to the valley tomorrow and I feel all guilty and mean and uncharitable because I'm unhappy about that. I have to figure out the logistics of dropping them off at a very crowded funeral and picking them up again, without a cell phone so they could call me to tell me when they're done. And they can't shuffle more than twenty yards at the most so I can't just park and go get them, I have to actually drive right up to the church and park close. sigh. But that's not a full explanation for my case of the grouchies. I seem to have started a minor furor over at someone else's diary's notes section, completely inadvertently, and that doesn't help.


I did get to go see T today. He had to drive down to his regular workplace to get some tools/parts/whatever, and so we drove up to meet him for lunch. That was nice. The kids and I played pool in the little diner where we ate and walked along the river. That was nice too. That certainly shouldn't have made me grouchy. Who knows what goes on in my mind.


LT and I had a good laugh last night, although he didn't know exactly why; he was just laughing because I was laughing. I was reading The Silver Chair onto a tape for my dad, and we got to the part where Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum are trying to figure out how to get out of the giants' castle at Harfang so that they could get under the ruined city, as Aslan had told them to do. Jill's job was to act like a silly little girl and try to get information out of the giants while they were off their guard. The line goes:

"She made love to everyone--the grooms, the porters, the housemaids, the ladies-in-waiting, and the elderly giant lords whose hunting days were past. She submitted to being kissed and pawed about by any number of giantesses..."

OK, now, look. I know fully that "made love" didn't mean then what it means now. And generally I have the furthest thing from a dirty mind that's humanly possible in the year 2003. But I was so tired last night, and when I'm tired I am very prone to this slap-happy kind of attitude, in which, in turn, I am very prone to getting fits of the giggles for no reason at all whatsoever. It took about five tries to get through the first sentence of that quote. I'd burst out laughing, then stop and rewind the tape to find my place again and start over, and LT would crack up laughing at the sound of my laughter on fast rewind, so we'd have to listen to that a few times in both directions. Then I finally got a good "take" of that one and came to the bit about being pawed by giantesses and I had to start the whole thing over. I couldn't help it. And I felt so guilty for finding it funny... but I just couldn't stop. I felt like I was back in junior high. (now there's something to have nightmares about).

--------