"Effluvia": A byproduct or residue; waste.
"Chazerai": Disgusting stuff, trash (that's the formal Yiddish definition; the truth is, it now means "oddments, junk food, clutter -- you know, CHAZERAI!)
In this case, and this application, I mean simply the thinkings and ramblings of the last few days....for example:
This is one of the things we Wisconsinites live for. The rest of you can have your caviar, your Kobe beef, your puffer fish......we have DEEP-FRIED CHEESE CURDS! (OK, you can put that fact right out of your minds.....we DO know they're globules of congealed milk, rolled in buttery breadcrumbs and dropped into boiling fat - and we do know the little clicking sound as we eat them are our arteries slamming shut. We do know that -- see Chazerai , above.)
Cue theme music: "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things"....you see here one definition of my Happy Place. Directly before me, my Current Read (in this case, "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle", which I am reading slowly and savoring); above that my very own portion of Deep-Fried Cheese Curds (made even tastier by the fact that they were only $1 for the bag); and Mr Dearling across from me, with his very own bag of them!
I watched a marathon of "Dog, the Bounty Hunter". OK, so it's another dark secret - I'm almost amazed they ever catch anyone - you'd think someone in town would notice two or three huge black SUVs filled with stout blond people dripping beads and feathers (and some skinny ones with mohawks and long earrings - and his WIFE) in town and tip off every fugitive in a five-state area. But I really lost it when I read the disclaimer, which went something like this: "Actual hunters going after actual fugitives... DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME! Aw nuts, and I was just going to get myself a few neck chains and try it....
Mental image: me (4'11", remember) wearing my necklaces - a Thor's hammer, a fleur-de-lys, a little ceramic lamb pendant...driving my Subaru Outback and wearing a sunbonnet and shades. Nope, I won't be "trying that at home".
Bath and Body Works is discontinuing their "Purely Silk" and "Ultimate Silk" hand lotions. These are the only hand lotions I've ever found that I can use and then immediately knit on account of, they really are NOT greasy or sticky. See where I said "discontinued"? There issued from my lips (quietly, I hope) a stream of language that would make Jack Sparrow blush.....but a phone call from my usual shop to a distant-but-still-local shop revealed that THEY had "tons"! So I went over the next day and bought twelve (count 'em, 12 ) bottles of the stuff, all in "Sensual Amber", my smell du jour. I figure that'll last me, maybe until I croak. (Nevermind that I do have about half-a-dozen bottles of the stuff in other scents.) Hmmmm....I'll have handy prizes if I do another contest sometime soon! I love the stuff - but I always enjoy things more if I can share 'em. PS - being as they ARE being discontinued, they're marked way down. Whew!
And last - effectively catching myself up - is this:
See? NINE little preemie caps. I'm using all the same pattern - CO 42, do a few rows seed stitch and then knit up to the top (decreasing where I should). I think they're darling; I'll see where to send them for Ravelry, I think - but I'm on a roll and I'm going to send off as many as I can to the hospital where my Lovely Daughter was born (weighing 3 lbs. 2 oz. at birth and 2 lbs. 11 oz. the next morning). I still have another Calorimetry on the needles, and I've finished my Homespun cowl too, but I am enjoying these wee caps - and I found some Caron yarn made out of recycled plastic bottles, which is machine wash-and-dry-able. It's called "Caron ECO". It's green. Well -- no, one skein is actually "Wheat". The other one is "Spring Moss", which makes it both green and green . Oy.
Nothing like a warm sunbath...
