DIARY
The Norse goddess was named Frigg
by
Robert LaFrance
Not referring to the blowhard now
living at the White House (that we burned during the War of 1812 and should
have kept burning), people do lie, and automatically.
Thursday morning my bedroom phone
rang at 7:51 am and I stumbled over to answer it. (Someday I will put it next
to my side of the bed.)
“Halloo,” I mumbled, not meaning any
more than “&^%$#@(*^!”
“Oh hello, did I wake you up?” said
this bright and cheerful voice.
“No, it’s all right,” I mumbled. “I
had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”
Although I never lie (that’s a lie),
there are times when one must lie to salve other people’s feelings. In the days
before Political Correctness, these were called ‘little white lies’. I remember
the day half a century ago when I asked a certain girl if she had any feelings
for me. “You must be kidding,” she said. “You disgust me,” and she spat on the
ground. You see how she spared my feelings by not telling me the whole truth?
***********************
“Wow! That’s quite an edifice,”
enthused one of the busload of Toronto tourists. She was gazing at Kincardine’s
skyscraper, a 3-storey structure built during the Depression and still standing
as a monument to our business community.
It’s looking pretty shabby these
days – its last paint job was in 1959 – but is still an imposing building.
Flug’s Uncle Jeff owns it now and keeps chickens in it, something not unusual
in these parts. His wife’s father had built it in 1932, as an answer to New York
City’s Empire State Building that, amazingly, had been put up on time and on
budget that year.
Although I’ve lived in these parts
for several decades, I never have figured out why a busload of tourists would
come all the way down here to look at it. I’ve heard that that city has several buildings more than
three storeys tall. On Saturday I found out.
Glenn Abbott is a tour guide of that
bus line. He explained that neither he nor the tourists had any interest in a
chicken house in rural New Brunswick. “The so-called tourists are homeless
people,” Glenn said. “You see, Toronto can’t afford to put them up in
apartments or even closets, so they hire us to drive them around the country.
It turns out that it’s much cheaper to do it this way. When we leave here we’re
heading for Minto, where there’s a petting zoo.”
***********************
Yesterday evening I visited old
Finsterwald who was watching television. He’s always watching television. It
doesn’t matter if it’s Wheel of Fortune reruns, a Littlest Hobo Festival or War
and Peace done in Swahili, with subtitles.
While I was there yesterday, he did
manage to drag his eyes away from a Manitoba Poker Tournament long enough to
say hello the beer’s in the fridge, but that was about it, plus: “Pull up a chair.
Coronation Street is coming on in three hours, after The Secret Edge of
Tomorrow’s General Hospital Storm.” He loves his soap operas.
The reason I mention this all is
that while I was there, a short show came on and talked about ‘artificial
intelligence’. I looked over at Finsterwald who wasn’t taking in what was being
said. It was then I realized that his ‘Smart TV’ and Smart Car, both made with
Artificial Intelligence, represented about the only intelligence that the
Finsterwald house would ever see. I went home and watched Jeopardy and didn’t
know one answer.
***********************
Why I wanted to know this, I have no
idea, not being intelligent, but last week I checked on Google to see where the
names of our days came from.
Obviously, or at least evidently
(not even apparently) Sunday’s name came as a tribute to the Sun, or at the
very least the Sun God Ra of ancient Egypt. Monday is talking about the moon;
Tuesday is clearly in tribute to the Germanic War god Tiu (as if I had heard of
him). Wednesday is from the Germanic Sky god Woden – we all knew that. Thursday
is from the Norse Thunder god Thor, and then, last but not least, the name
Friday is named after the Norse Love goddess Frigg. Google it if you don’t
believe me.
So when you hear someone say: “Holy
Frigg!” when they drop a stitch in that sock they’re knitting, they’re really
talking about love. Go figure.-end-
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