Apparently it's round-the-world week in my piano book. I have "Gallop on the Moor" (which has some minor shades of Leroy Anderson to it; there is literally what sounds like galloping - or really, more trotting - in it). And then there's "Mysterious Casbah" (which is more fun than it sounds).

The book - which of course is aimed at the under-15 set - very helpfully tells us that a casbah is "A North African palace."

Which raises the question for me - when did a "casbah" become the sort of thing that Pepe Le Pew* (or other various ham-handed would-be romantics) offered to invite the lady of the hour to? Is it some left-over Valentino thing?

I always think it's funny how there's stuff I know, that's from perhaps 2 generations before me, because of Warner Brothers cartoons. (Seriously - what is the last time someone invited a person to come to their "casbah" unironically?)

Another odd little love-making** tidbit from Warner Brothers - the concept of "come up so I can show you my etchings." Even as a child, I presumed they were "naughty" (though as a child, the only "naughtiness" I could imagine being involved would be ladies with no clothes on). But where did THAT line come from?

It's funny how many things are out there floating around in the collective consciousness that most of us have no idea of the origins of

(*I always felt kind of sorry for poor old Pepe. So enthusiastic but so misguided. One would hope he'd have found a nice French lady-skunk and, if not been happy, at least worked out his inter-species confusion. Also, nowadays, I'm sure there's a cosmetic surgery that would take care of his "problem.")

(**In the perhaps-Victorian sense. Not in the later sense. Still, Warner Brothers cartoons were light years beyond most stuff on tv in suggestiveness, having been originally aimed at adults. It's just that so much of that stuff was so subtle it zoomed over the kids' heads.)

****

And a "Thursday Th'Heck?"

I came home yesterday afternoon and found a small package from Powell's in my mailbox. I had ordered from Powell's a couple weeks back; one of the items was a Margery Allingham mystery, and I ordered the UK edition because it was the only one available. Well, my book came. And I couldn't remember anything that I had ordered that had been on back-order.

So I kind of shrugged and decided to open it (thinking, who knows, maybe my brother got his schedule together for once and sent a birthday gift on time). The exterior of the envelope had my name and address, plus Powell's return address

In it was a copy of the Rough Guide to Madeira and Porto Santo.

Which I most definitely did not order. While I don't really have a negative opinion on those two places (and in fact had to look at a map to remind myself of precisely where they were), I have no interest in going to either.

There was also an invoice in there. Addressed to a Mr Andrew Williams (no period after the Mr because he's in the British Isles). Of Dublin, Ireland.

Honestly, what is it with me and unexpected books I did not order. It's like my mailbox is on the other end of a wormhole that misdirected books fall into. I suppose that's a bit more appealing than being the other end of the Dryer Sock Wormhole, but still.

I've e-mailed the UK Penguin Group (helpfully, there was a customer service e-mail address on the invoice) letting them know. I hope they don't want me to send the book back to the UK on my own dime - because frankly, that might cost more than the book's worth (it's marked 6 pounds 99). I've not heard back yet.

My assumption is that Penguin and Vintage (the company that produced my book) use the same UK distribution/mailing center (centre?) and the address machine hiccuped (hiccoughed?) and printed a second mailing label for me which then went on Mr Williams' book. (I do hope that that wasn't an error perpetrated down the line, where Mr Williams got the book that was to go to the person who ordered after him, and on down the line.)

I know I don't talk politics much on here, in the interest of preserving some kind of peace and sanity.

But I have to make (yet another) comment on the Blagojevich mess: today, I heard on the radio that he was comparing himself to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi.

I think we need some kind of reverse form of Godwin's Law: if a person who is very likely a scoundrel* compares himself or herself to any of those individuals, he or she automatically loses.

(*Or even is not likely a scoundrel, though I think it's almost the very depths of bathos** to compare oneself to Martin Luther King, Jr. (The VERY depths would be to say, "I'm just like Jesus, man! Just like Jesus!" [and after hearing someone make such a statement, I would very rapidly step away from them, for fear of being unintended collateral damage of the thunderbolt I would expect to follow]))

(** I am not quite sure that is the right word - I am thinking of something designed to tug the emotional heartstrings but purely inappropriate, like someone who was passed over for a promotion at work because they were a slacker comparing themselves to, say, Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake)

Wow, two things deserving of the "ewwww" tag in one day...

Hello Kitty meets Martha Stewart:



The wonders of YouTube. Emphasis on the "wonder."

(I'm really trying not to snark here; I recognize that there's probably some cultural difference (I think the video's originator is in Japan) that I am not getting. But it must be hard to sew wearing little cat feet.)

Well, this was a surprise:



I got one of those salmon-colored slips in my mailbox telling me I had a package waiting at the P.O. When I got down there to pick it up, the above is what they handed me. (I knew it was a Folio Books shipment).

I immediately said, "Oh, no, I hope this doesn't mean the box broke in transit" (because Folio Press and I kind of have a history of that.)

The Post Office lady assured me that no, this is "policy" for packages out of the UK (Apparently it's a Customs thing. The Customs slip was marked "Gift" even though I am paying for a couple books in there....I guess arguably the majority of the "cost" was "Gift" because it was my several-free-books-for-re-upping deal).



Here is is, off the box. It's pretty big - almost 3 feet by 2 feet. I'd be tempted to make SOMETHING out of it because frankly, I think it's kind of cool. (One way in which I am a geek? I am an Anglophile geek.) However:

1. It's made out of that weird woven-tiny-strips-of-plastic stuff that would probably gum up the sewing machine (and melt under the iron)

2. The thought of how many trains, planes, and trucks (lorries?) it probably booted around in the back of makes the germophobe in me twitch a little.

Still, I haven't thrown it away (Maybe I can use it to store my garden tools in for the winter, in the garage) because it is, frankly, one of the more weird-cool things that's come in the mail.

***

I'm going to make a concerted effort to only post once a day in the future. (We'll see how long this lasts). Someone (someone not in my "friends") was asking on Ravelry, "Can I turn off the links to certain of my friends' blogs without de-friending them? One person I've friended posts too many times a day and that effectively spams my friends blogs page."

This is where I have a hard time judging situations...I don't know if someone griping about that is totally off base or if it's a total annoyance to have lots of blog posts show up on a page or a feed reader. So whatever, I'm going to try to keep from (potentially) annoying people.

But I'm feeling shaky enough other wise (it's a bad, bad pollen season here) that the thought I might be upsetting someone with spammity spam spam posts bothers me and makes me unhappy.

Good grief...what has Knit Picks done to Sheldon?

Seriously, I don't think even Extreme Makeover would touch that one.

And now for something a little bit funny.

It's time for Manos - The Yarn of Fate!!!!! (as a person who was an MST3K fan even before MST3K was cool, I HAVE to say that. Even if Em or someone came up with it first).

The Manos I asked my mom to buy for me (for a "My So-called Scarf") came today:



(it's color 100)

And then I thought, gee, that looks oddly familiar.

I had one skein of Manos in my stash that I'd bought at Ewe Knits back over, I think, my Spring break, for a pair of fingerless mitts I had not yet started. So I went and got it.



Dahn-dahn-DAHN!!!!.


Yes, they are the same colorway.


I said, didn't I, that my mom knew what colors I liked....

Diann: your letter is "J".
****

And here are a couple of "Wednesday 'Whaaat?'" items:

First:



Regia yarn is "dimensionally stable." Which is great, because I know I hate it when my projects go blipping off to the 8th dimension or somewhere.

(What do they really mean? Is this some kind of "It won't stretch out of shape" statement?)

And second:



When stickers get stuck in the 1970s! It's a pig! With a heart! With a rainbow! And a sweater made out of rainbows! ("Imagi-NATION!" says SpongeBob)

This was on a valentine's box (fig cookies) from my mom. I'm not sure if she intended the sticker ironically or not.

Which actually, that provides me with a little bit of a segue (and that is the correct spelling. It is not, dear goodness, "segway," as I have seen some type it.)

Valentine's Day. I think I pinpointed some of my frustration with what the holiday has become.

One of the local news-bunnies, this morning, said in a very pettish childish voice, "I'm still WAITING on my flowers!" You silly old trout - for one thing, it's six freaking thirty in the morning. I realize you were trying to be funny, but taking that kind of tone - which I would consider childish coming from a six year old - just set my teeth on edge.

And it made me realize: the whole day has turned into a minefield. There's tremendous pressure to find the 'right' gift, and the implication is that it's PERFECTLY OKAY to be ungrateful and even offended if your "beloved" doesn't pick out the exact thing your heart desires. Women are allowed - and even encouraged - to behave like six year olds if they don't get flowers or jewelry or who knows what.

(And I will leave it to others to draw the feminist implications of women being encouraged to act like spoiled children.)

And that's just not fair. Especially because the other implication seems to be "If he REALLY loved you, he'd be able to read your mind and get exactly what you want."

And there's really no attention given to the other side of the equation - it's not at all clear to me if it's understood you will buy a gift for your man (provided you have one), or if there's some other kind of, ahem, return that's expected.

There's also the issue that there seems to be an escalation in money spent - while I haven't seen car ads suggesting you buy your love a car for V-Day, I'm sure they are coming.

And it all makes me want to do the headdesk thing. How did we get from, say, third grade in 1978, where we made shoeboxes and got little paper cards with Mickey Mouse or Superman on them, and drank red Hi-C punch, and ate cupcakes with pink frosting, to "I'm still WAITING on my flowers!" and "She'll think you spent weeks planning it, when it's really just a mouseclick away."

I don't know. We seem to be awfully good at screwing up gift-giving occasions in this society, in either allowing Madison Avenue to take over and ramp up the expectations to the "unrealistic" level, or to expect whatever sorry little gift* to make up for a world of inattention, missed communication, and lack of loving behavior the rest of the year.

(*And I maintain: if you have not love, a $25,000 diamond necklace is NOT compensation. If you are rude or dismissive or take the person you love for granted, there is no thing you could buy that will compensate for that. And on the flip side: if you do have love, if you make an effort to be kind and to listen and to thank the person when they go above-and-beyond, no gift is really necessary, I think, other than more of the same.)

But what do I know? I'm always on the outside looking in on these things. Maybe everyone's perfectly happy playing a part in what looks to me like a big mash-up of deception and quid pro quo. If that's the truth, then I don't feel so bad about not being part of a couple.

Still - it would be kind of nice to have a cupcake with pink frosting on it. And maybe even a silly card with Pooh Bear on it that said something like "Bee my Honey."

****

And it is still my birthday month. In less than two weeks, I am considered a year older.

And I found this on another site. Usually I kind of roll my eyes at Ogden Nash - he's too flip, his verse seems tossed off in a lot of cases - but this one very nearly had me crying at the end:

A Lady Who Thinks She is Thirty

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda’s sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What’s a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then—
How old is Spring, Miranda?

--Ogden Nash