eub | (no subject)

It's been colder here last week than it ever gets. The winter lettuces and beets and all have probably all had it, despite what they claim they can survive down to. They have that cooked greens look. On the other hand, the bay at the Arboretum froze over; we went there today and walked all over the water, one eye out for pucks from the crowds of happy hockey players. Children showed us where to press your face against the ice to see a turtle under there, the size of a plate, which we didn't see moving, but it didn't stay in the same place.

On Montlake we saw some fire trucks go by, and I wondered about the word "ambulance", what it had to do with walking. It's from French, where it turns out it was originally "hôpital ambulant", a moving hospital, attached to an army; and the "ambulance wagon" was a wagon appertaining to the ambulance.

The OED word of the day, though, is dare²:

A contrivance for ‘daring’ or fascinating larks.

1860 Sala Hogarth in Cornh. Mag. II. 239 note, The ‘dare’ I have seen resembles a cocked hat, or chapeau bras, in form, and is studded with bits of looking-glass, not convex, but cut in facets inwards, like the theatrical ornament cast in zinc, and called a ‘logie’. The setting is painted bright red, and the facets turn on pivots, and being set in motion by a string attached to the foot, the larks are sufficiently ‘dared’ and come quite over the fascinating toy.

(This is a different "dare" than the usual; it's at first to stare, to dread, to lie appalled, and later the larks' sense, "To daze, paralyse, or render helpless, with the sight of something; to dazzle and fascinate.")

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"On Montlake we saw some fire trucks go by, and I wondered about the word "ambulance", what it had to do with walking. It's from French, where it turns out it was originally "hôpital ambulant", a moving hospital, attached to an army; and the "ambulance wagon" was a wagon appertaining to the ambulance."

Nice!

So far the main positive about the weather for me is that I just made breakfast with some lox I'd accidentally left out in my really-cold kitchen. We'll see if that was that good of an idea soon, but, it was cool to the touch and it's smoked in the first place.

Children showed us where to press your face against the ice to see a turtle under there, the size of a plate, which we didn't see moving, but it didn't stay in the same place.

That is awesome!