On Hissy-Fitting and Lickety-Splitting

Great Big Baby Dog Woodrow, Old Lady Dog Callie, and I were lying on our bellies looking out my attic-bedroom window at 6:15 this morning.  Snuggling in bed with your dogs looking out the window together in the early morning is one of the great pleasures of life.  I commend it to you.

While we were gazing at the ice-covered woods, the dogs began throwing a hissy-fit.  If you are not from the American south, you may not know that a hissy-fit is a tantrum.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines hissy-fit as a sudden period of uncontrolled and silly anger like a child’s.  I do not think people from Cambridge throw hissy-fits. 

In addition, one does not HAVE a hissy-fit.  One THROWS a hissy-fit.  I do not know why.  

Perhaps it’s because throw is a strong verb.  A good hissy-fit is always thrown.  Most recently I threw a hissy-fit when I dropped my phone in the bath.

But back to the dogs’ hissy-fit.  They threw it because Young Red Fox was lickety-splitting down the cart path. 

The Oxford Dictionary defines lickety-split thus: as quickly as possible.  OD says lickety-split is an adverb, but I prefer it as a verb.  I know the word more intimately than the writers of OD do because I’ve been lickety-splitting all my life, and I doubt that anyone who ever worked on the Oxford Dictionary has ever lickety-splitted.  I can’t imagine a wizened don sitting in a dusty library telling another wizened don, “I need a definition of perspicacious lickety-split.”

Please note that I like verbing nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.  Lickety-splitting is a more powerful verb than running lickety-split.

Lest you wonder whether verbing is a verb, it is.  Antimeria/anthimeria is the act of changing one part of speech into another, such as verbing.    If you change the word, it’s a derivation.  If you don’t change the word, it’s a conversion or a zero derivation.

Lest you think this essay is pointless, let me assure you that I have a point: life is too short to throw hissy-fits by annoyances lickety-splitting through our lives.  Like other people’s antimeria:  Yesterday I was lickety-splitting past another white-haired woman who was throwing a hissy-fit about her daughter-in-law’s use of the word cocooning, as in, “We’re staying home cocooning this weekend.” 

I wanted to say, “Lady, at our age, life is too short for throwing hissy-fits.

“Instead, we should each go home and snuggle on our beds with our dogs and gaze into the snow-filled woods.” 

Dogs who get hissyfied by foxes lickety-splitting by.

Hissyfied?  One of my favorite antimeria is making predicate adjectives by adding fied to almost any part of speech.  So I hope you have been smartified today because I taught you about antimeria/anthimeria. 

And I hope you stop lickety-splitting for the rest of the day, get unhissyfied, and go snuggle with your dogs on your bed and stare out the window together. And thus be blessifed.

 

 

 

Addendum to My Taxonomy of Urination

Knowledge is dynamic; research constantly reveals new truth.  That which was once impossible is now a reality.  New species are discovered.  Old taxonomies must be revised.  Ergo, I am revising my month-old Taxonomy of Urination with this addendum. 

A few days after I posted my taxonomy, my “like a second dad to me” junior high band director called.  He said, “I have read and been thinking about your taxonomy of urination.”

“So what have you been thinking?” I asked.

“It’s good, but I decided that I need to tell you that you left something out.”

“What’s that?” I asked, grabbing a pencil and notepad so I could get every word down correctly.

“Taking a piss,” he said.  “You left out taking a piss.  That’s an important omission.”

“Okay,” I said.  “I didn’t think about it at the time.  Talk to me.  I need you to do a semantic analysis to differentiate taking a piss from the other types of urination I listed.”

“Well,” he said, “When I was a young man, I could take a piss several times a day.  It’s what you do when you really have to go, and your stream is strong and vigorous, and you can pee a perfect arc up into the air.  You have a powerful feeling of relief.  You usually follow it with a big sigh and a smile.”

“It gives you great pleasure?”

“Oh, yes.  Taking a piss is definitely a great pleasure.”

“But you’re old now, Dad.  Can you still take a piss?”

“Only rarely.  Mostly I tinkle.  Sitting down.  But once in a while, I can take a piss, like after a long car ride.  And it’s glorious.”

“How does it make you feel now at your age?”

“Oh, it makes me feel like a young man again.  It’s a wonderful pleasure.”

“Got it, Dad.  Thanks.  I’ll update the taxonomy soon.”

So please add taking a piss to my Taxonomy of Urination. 

And thanks, Dad, for your contribution to science.  May you still be taking an occasional piss when you’ve turned 105.

 

 

Stump

Got a stump right smack dab in the middle of my back yard.  As I understand convention, a civilized person is not supposed to have a stump in her yard.  A civilized person who has a stump in her yard calls sinewy, grizzled guys who come out with a contraption called a stump grinder that erases the stump from its spot on the earth.  Erases all signs that a tree ever lived on that spot: purified the air, shaded rabbits, flowered in lascivious glory, sheltered baby cardinals, shattered the air with brilliant color in the fall, made a home for hoot owls as it died. 

Don’t understand why a person would want to erase a stump. 

My stump is a double stump.  This probably makes me only half as civilized as people who have a single stump.  And infinitely less civilized than people who have no stump at all. 

The left-hand part of my stump is eight inches across and two feet high.  The right-hand part is six inches across and a foot high.  The right and left stump faces are cut at 45 degree angles facing away from each other.  Their upturned faces make them look like they are admiring the leaves in the trees who are still living.  Or enjoying the sun.  Or like two good friends standing back-to-back fighting for their lives.  Against sinewy grizzled guys out to erase them.  “I’m on your six,” the short stump would shout to the tall one.  “Got yer back,” the tall one would yell in return.

My stump has borne silent witness to untold joy and despair:  The delight of an elderly ground squirrel at feeling the warm sun on his fur when he emerges from his long winter’s nap.  The terror of a grey squirrel my neighbors trap and carry away as she clings to the cage bars and screams for her babies.  The despair of a naked baby bird who lies crying in the wet grass and waits for his death. The thrill of a young thumbkin bat, amazed at her own fearsome feats, as she cavorts through the air catching acrobatic bugs.  The sensuous joy of my sweet gum tree as the rain caresses her long lean limbs while she stretches them seductively in the wind. To all this joy and despair, and untold more, has my stump borne silent witness.

I know my double-stump is not a living tree any more.  Don’t know who it was or why it died.  Bought the stump along with the house.  Can’t miss the tree I never knew, but I would miss the stump if sinewy, grizzled guys came with a stump grinder in the middle of the night and grinded it.  Would scream and throw books at them out of my attic window until they threw up their hands and skulked off muttering about the crazy woman in the attic.

I am not the only person to whom this stump is important.  Grey squirrels in the trees that line my back yard love this stump.    They scurry down my sweet gum tree and race across the yard to hop up on it.  They raise up on their haunches and gaze back at the sweet gum to admire it from a different perspective.  Then they peer at the oaks and the elm tree to see whether they have changed from the day before.  Occasionally they look directly at me through the attic window and wonder what the hell I’m doing inside on such a magnificent day.

Once in a glorious while, a couple of young squirrels will climb up on the stump to see the world from a new perspective together.  Thrilling to run out of the safe cover of the trees and climb up on a stump, exposed, for the first time.  Like the first day of school.  Like the first crush.  Like the first kiss.

A few minutes ago, in the rain that is washing my stump, a pale five-pointed sweet gum leaf fell on its left-hand face.  The stump is dark-coffee-brown, so the leaf looks like a star in the night sky.  Seems to be stuck there.  Tomorrow, maybe a squirrel will hop up on the stump and push the leaf off.  But for now, I like to think the leaf is enjoying seeing the world from a new perspective.

Maybe we each live in a Life-Tree.  Maybe we live so close to the wonders of our Life-Trees that we can’t see them clearly.  Maybe sitting on a stump from time to time would help us gain new perspectives on our lives.  I don’t know about civilized people, but I think I’d gladly trade being civilized for the perspective afforded me by sitting on my stump any day. 

Musings on Musical Trolls

Last Saturday morning I was decorating the serving tables in the church parish hall for coffee after the Sunday service.  Created an autumn explosion of color with all the usual fall accoutrements: pumpkins, acorns, pine cones, leaves pulsing with color, and one of my signature items scattered with abandon: river gravel instead of confetti. 

My unexpected, funny elements were my trolls playing musical instruments. I love them.  I have thirteen of them.  I have two cellists; three sax players who may be blind because they are wearing dark sunglasses; and three beatific, angelic-looking euphonium players wearing Norse helmets with horns.  I don’t know whether they play euphoniums or baritones because the instruments look the same on the outside to me.  About their only difference is the shape of their internal bores.  I don’t spend much time worrying about that.  But I like the word euphonium better than baritone, so that’s what I choose to think they’re playing.

I also have five demented-looking drummers.  They don’t look like they’re dangerous.  They just look like they’re nuts.  Together, I call them Five Demented Drummers and The Band. 

Five of my trolls peeked out from amidst the leaves and behind the pumpkins on my tablescapes.  Most people never even noticed them on Sunday.  But I knew they were there.

I think the woods are full of trolls who play musical instruments.  I think they sleep in the summer heat; their furry tails sweat, and having sweat run down your tail is most unpleasant, so they reverse hibernate.  They hide in their caves in the winter, but they don’t sleep; they sit by a roaring fire in an enormous fireplace in a cavernous hall and play troll music.  And dance.  Eat biscuits and jam.  Blackberry jam.  And fried pies.  Blackberry.  Drink blackberry ale.  I like that image. 

My musical trolls come out in the spring and fall.  In spring, they play music in the light of the moon.  And right at dawn.  You have to listen closely because the birds sing so loudly.  But if you are patient, listen intently, and believe, you can hear them.

But fall is the musical trolls’ favorite time of year.  They stay outside all day playing their music.  You can’t see them because of the fallen leaves, pinecones, rotting logs, pumpkins.  They take tiny knives and axes and burrow their way into the pumpkins from the bottom where the pumpkins are lying on the ground. You don’t see anything when you walk by; the trolls’ hiding-pumpkins don’t look like jack-o-lanterns.  They look like ordinary pumpkins.  But the trolls see you.  They drill tiny peepholes into the pumpkins so they can watch you as you walk down the trail, enjoying the fall color, blissfully unaware of them.

I am a joyful Episcopalian, and I figure that if God could choose to make something as irritating as human beings who are endlessly troublesome, then that same Creator could choose to make something as delightful as musical trolls who aren’t any trouble at all.

So put on your favorite old sweater, grab your walking stick, and go take a walk through the woods this afternoon.  Drink in the splendiferous fall color, bathe yourself in the smell of the wood smoke, and drench your ears with the sound of troll music that underlies the song of the birds and the rustle of the leaves. And when you hear it, remember to use your manners and say, “Thank you, God.”

G’fernock.  That’s troll for Amen.