My dad is at risk of being kicked out of his assisted living facility. He has a week to turn his behavior around. What’s that saying about old dogs?
I complain about my brothers from time to time but I am so glad I’m not the only kid my father has. The brothers are going to have to deal with this.
In case any of Ganching’s readers wonder where I get the authority to pronounce on dirty words in Chaucer, I have taught 47 classes titled “Chaucer,” at undergraduate, master’s, and Ph.D. seminar levels, plus two independent studies on his works. I have read everything Chaucer ever wrote, usually more than once, usually more than four times (it’s true that once was enough for the Treatise on the Astrolabe). Although I consider myself a scholar of medieval romance, I have published on Chaucer pedagogy.
When I counted up the 47 sections, in the process of compiling my promotion application, I was so horrified that work stopped on the application for several days while I processed the realization. There was even one year when all I taught was Chaucer: five courses. I had repressed that. Possibly the powers that be were trying to minimize my preps at that point, because I was applying for tenure? Except I think that I had just applied . . . maybe it was supposed to be a reward after getting the application in? I don’t actually like teaching multiple sections of anything. I’d rather have all different classes, so I don’t have to keep sections in sync, or try to remember whether I’ve done the medieval demographics lecture in this class or not, or whether I’m repeating myself in one section and never saying something important to the other one. So that was a vile, vile year.
Despite the existence of books like Chaucer’s Bawdy and people like Carissa Harris who study rude drawings in Chaucer manuscripts, Chaucer is far more given to innuendo than to open obscenity. His rudest word is probably swyve, a word I’m fond of, but whose register seems to be roughly like that of screw in modern English. He does use shete (shit) on occasion, as well. When it comes to female genitalia, he prefers French belle chose, pretty thing, and queynte, with all its available puns (quenched, quaint). I recall (but am too lazy to look up) a discussion by some august critic (Larry Benson? John Fleming?) that considered translating the famous phrase from the Miller’s Tale as “he caught her by the elegant.” I believe this possibility was then dismissed, but I quite like it, and think it goes nicely with “belle chose,” the Wife of Bath’s choice for what it is men want of her.
Traybake’s assertions, however, make me wonder if there is a translation into modern English that uses ruder words than Chaucer did, or if it’s just that some students are so shocked to see any non-latinate reference to genitalia in Great Literature that they remember such references as cruder than they are. Students can be funny critters. They sometimes try to shock me by asking questions about words like queynte, and then they get the full philological lecture, with dictionary displays and etymology, which ought to bore them into quiescence. But usually it makes them decide I’m unexpectedly cool.
Between extreme heat, and trouble sleeping, and an unhappy gut, I feel like today ought to have been cancelled. It’s one of those non-days, the blanks at the start or end of a month (see the last paragraph here), not a work day, not a holiday, a not-happening day.
I spent six hours reading very old blog posts: Another Damned Medievalist, Medieval Woman, Ancrene Wiseass, New Kid On The Hallway, from c.2004-2006. I guess that’s my “screen time,” not TV. I found some “four things” memes that made me laugh. One of the problems with memes is that they usually go on for too long; what’s funny for a few lines gets tedious when there are 20 or 30 different things you’re supposed to answer.
So here’s my answer to just one: the names of four crushes. David, Eric, Scott, David. Pretty much what you’d expect for a straight woman of my age! I mean, who didn’t know half a dozen Davids?
I’m not even traveling this summer, and yet I am jet-lagged. I had a bad time sleeping this week, until Friday night I was up till 2:00 and slept till 10:00 yesterday. I expected that it would take days to work back to my real time zone from this virtual Hawaii*. Instead, I was wiped out by sunset, went to bed at 9:30, and woke up before 4:00 a.m. I tried valiantly to go back to sleep till 5:00, and then got up.
Does my body think that summer is the season of international travel and so, one way or another, we’re going to have sleep disturbances?
*See also: https://www.xkcd.com/448/
Heat some olive oil over low-medium heat in a small frying pan and wilt a handful of spinach in it. On top of the spinach, spread 1/2 to 3.4 of a cup of cooked rice (if it’s cold, zap it in the microwave first). Season with salt, pepper, and any herbs you feel like, such as oregano. Make two little hollows in the rice and break an egg into each one. Cover and cook till the eggs are at the desired stage of firmness or runniness. Serves one, but it can easily scale up for more people. I like it with ketchup. Salsa would be good, too.
I swear that the people who used to own this house got their garden inspiration from The Hunger Games: plant half a dozen species known for spreading aggressively, then sit back and watch them all fight for dominance.
I am so tired of trying to keep all these plants under some kind of control.
Perhaps I will make oregano pesto with some of the oregano that is trying to take over the front yard. It’s in the mint family, so of course it spreads like mad. At least it smells nice, and it’s not bellflower: two points in its favor.
If you fantasize about a writing hut in your garden, here’s a series of posts for you (and click on the Victorian Renovation tab for more):
http://maryannemohanraj.com/2018/04/13/20178/
http://maryannemohanraj.com/2018/04/29/shed-writing/
I cherish the fond illusion that I file/recycle/toss paperwork every 3-6 months, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Very otherwise. However, today I have tackled stacks of paper. As usually happens when things pile up for long enough, I have been able to recycle large quantities, including early drafts of two essays for which I have now corrected proofs, print-outs of conference papers given three and four years ago, and receipts associated with those conferences.
Still on my desk:
*a program from a conference four years ago, in a place I particularly enjoyed;
*instructions for my phone. which I seem to have got on quite well without;
*a two-year pocket calendar for 2014-2015;
*a postcard from Hull;
*a paper written by a graduate student for a course I taught, which I think I kept because in theory I am on the student’s dissertation committee (in practice, I don’t think the student has submitted any work yet);
*receipts from this year’s stay in Kalamazoo;
*a stack of references to things I mean to read for scholarly purposes;
*a set of newspaper clippings referring to books I have thought of reading for pleasure, along the lines of Val McDermid’s Northanger Abbey and Her Brilliant Career;
*a handout from a paper at this year’s K’zoo with my notes connecting the paper to one I’m thinking of writing;
*a check re-order form;
*an important piece of paper I should have put in my safe deposit box four years ago but which at this point is probably irrelevant;
*a chapter draft with marginal comments from discussion with my writing group;
*the label with which to return printer ink cartridges for recycling;
*a certificate, in Spanish and English, testifying to my having given a paper at a conference in a Spanish-speaking country.
Snapshot of my desk/life.
Dame Eleanor Hull 