The exercise:
Write about: the engine.
Spent the morning harvesting most of our squash in the garden: the acorn, festival, spaghetti, and delicata are all curing on the deck at Kat's parents house. I'm leaving the butternut to ripen a little bit more before I collect them as well.
Hung out with Max this afternoon, which was pretty low key since he's still getting over his latest cold. Did I mention he caught another one of those? I guess because I've managed to avoid its clutches so far it must have slipped my mind.
Knock, knock, knocking on wood...
Mine:
"I don't know what to say."
"How about... you were right?"
"Hah. Fine. You were right. This is a beautiful car."
"I know, right?"
"I don't know how you got such a great deal on her."
"Hey, I drive a hard bargain, all right?"
"I guess! Damn... okay, let's pop the hood."
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why? To see what kind of shape the engine is in!"
"Uh, well... there's just one... little problem with that..."
"It doesn't have an engine, does it?"
"Well, no... not yet..."
2 comments:
Squashes sound good! Though I suppose they take up a bit more space than the rest of your produce? I suppose you're also excited because this must mark the beginning of the end of harvesting and the start of winter, with your new job as Lord Mayor of Penticton coming up :)
Heh, I wasn't actually expecting that last line from you (well, penultimate), but it's a good one. I rather like the excitement and the build-up only to find out that the car's not actually going anywhere...!
The Engine
Engine,vb.i. Ar. Engine is one of those spellings that arose in the late 1700's when the English literarti, in an effort to prove that they were more literate than any of their contemporaries, found increasingly exotic words in which to spell words. Why write potato, where any street-urchin or syphilitic whore might understand you, when you could write paughteightough instead. Especially if you happened to own a small foundary producing typefaces for printing. Similarly we have Cholmondeley ("Chumley"), Featherstonehaugh ("Fanshaw") and Politician ("Wanker"). Engine, therefore, is simply an exotic spelling of Enjinn, to insert a spirit into. Related to the notion of possession, where a spirit finds a body with an absentee soul and takes over (a little like squatting but generally with less graffiti and random defecation), enjinning is the art of forcibly inserting a fresh spirit into an old body. Useful for people with overbearing bosses, suffocating parents or strangulating spouses (please note, this dictionary does not endorse overbearing your boss, suffocating your parents or strangulating your spouse). Details for performing such a ritual may be found in appropriate texts (see Appendix A, Appendix D, Appendices I-P and Supplementary reading pp38-490).
Greg - yeah, the plants do spread out quite a bit. But we've got lots of room to work with so that's not much of an issue for us.
Things are indeed starting to wind down, which I'm quite happy about. It's been a long go this year, particularly the last two months. I'm certainly looking forward to doing something else.
Ah, I do so enjoy your dictionary entries. And that bit about the politician actually made me snort. I'm quite impressed with his particular entry, as it comes very close to sounding legitimate at several points.
Also: I quite like the idea of enjinning.
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