I fits perfectly (or, Come Walk With Me ... to the Farmer's Market!)

We had an old friend staying, and I walked her around the neighbourhood and at some point for some reason asked if she could actually see me settling into life in Sunnyvale.

No, she said.

And yes, I do see her point. I am inner-city boy to my core, and English through and through (except where Scottish, obviously), and this place is relentlessly suburban. As witness, my regular Saturday walk to the Farmer's Market:

( An illustrated saunter through the lush landscape of Sunnyvale )

Mac, on the other hand, fits perfectly:



And I came home to a letter from Homeland Security, giving me details of next month's appointment for my Green Card interview with the immigration folks. So I guess I fit perfectly too. I must do.

Go not to the internets for advice, for they will say both yay! and nay

Really, I only wanted to use the subject line; I'm not sure I actually need advice on this. But, y'know. I'm dithering. This may have become my equivalent of tossing a coin: as the post goes live, I realise what response I'm looking for. Or something.

Anyway. Thing is, September 19th - as you know, my hearties - is Talk Like A Pirate Day. It's also the middle of the week. Sunday 23rd September, on the other hand, is the weekend; and close enough; and even closer to Karen's half-birthday.

And I thought I might declare it Talk Like Stephen Maturin, Cook Like Preserved Killick Day, and invite people around, and cook foods direct from O'Brian's pages (we have the cookbook!), and play sea shanties all day (chanteys, I think, over here?) and finish up with a viewing of Master and Commander, while our much-abused digestions grumble.

Quite a long time ago, I thought that. And compiled an invitation-list and wrote a draft and everything. Only time has gone by, and I have conspicuously not sent out the invitations, and the more I thought about it the more stressed I was becoming.

So I had pretty much decided not to do it, though it should be fun (friends and food and drinking, what's stressful about that? *shrugs* I am inexplicable sometimes to myself).

Only this morning we had the letter from Homeland Security setting a date for my USCIS green-card initial interview - and that's the morning of the 24th. And Karen fairly promptly said, "I think you should go ahead with your Maturin/Killick party," and I'm fairly sure she thinks that if I have something fun and frolicsome to stress about, that'll take the edge off the stressing over the scary thing: for make no mistake, it is scary and I am stressed. Also she is no fool, my wife, except perhaps in the matter of marrying me.

So, O internets: I know what Karen thinks. What do you think? Maturin/Killick, lobscourse and spotted dog, yes/no? Would you come, would you cook, would you eat? Is it the lesser of two weevils, or are the dog days of summer to be cur-tailed...?

Another of those pedantic questions

Okay, I know when "sirrah" is first recorded - but does anyone know when it fell out of common usage? (I am finding the internet unhelpful.) Consider, f'rexample, Steampunk!Mars: Victoria is on her throne, and colonies are notoriously backward-looking at the same time as being bleeding-edge. Inherently conservative, even as they mint new linguistic coinage. Might a stuffy middle-aged cleric still commonly use "sirrah" to address his inferiors, or had it fallen out of use so long before the 19th century that there's just no way it could have been carried across the aether and survived? Even taking into account that we know the first settlers came over a century earlier?

Oh, and another

I have been inconsistent. *hands head in shame*

In mid-sentence, I have both "Union Flag" and "Union flag", to describe the Steampunk!Mars variant* on that thing most commonly called the Union Jack. When I turned to Wikipedia, its article on the subject merrily has Union Flag and Union flag and union flag quite indiscriminately. What do we think, people? Does the flag merit its own capital, or does that belong strictly to the Union? Or should I hang pedantry and call it the Union Jack (which I think always has both capitals) regardless of absence of seagoing vessels in this tale?

In other related news, I learned a word today. Vexillology: the study of flags. A contemporary coinage, but not exactly new; indeed, it first appeared in print at the same time that I did, in 1959 (if we count a birth certificate; I've no idea if there was an announcement in the paper that I had arrived).

*Wittily, it has a red border. So that the imperial colours are red, red, white and blue.

Hmmph

"The temperature was in the nineties" - in 1551? I don't think so. Mr Fahrenheit didn't come along with his scale until 1724. There's no point grumbling at the late great Dorothy, but honestly...

(Side issue: apparently only the United States, the Cayman Islands and Belize still cling to Fahrenheit as their official temperature scale. Any idea why? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?)