Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Oyreka!
Know what I remember from the Ancient European Civ class I took in college?
- Historians like Thucydides better than Herodotus
- Writers (like yours truly) like Herodotus better than Thucydides. Herodotus knew how to entertain.
- The ‘y’ in those old Greek names, like the Persian King Cyrus, is pronounced ‘oo’. Thus, Cyrus = Soorus.
- Similarly, the ‘eu’ combo is pronounced ‘oy’.
Eureka = Oyreka!
The boy and I had a good day together in Eureka. True, the neat-o store on 2nd Street which sold carnivorous plants, glass eyes, and faded sepia-toned photographs has closed. It’s a Persian rug store now. Aside from that, however, we had a great day.
The boy and I did lunch at Hurricane Kate’s, where, on the way to the bathroom, I overheard the dishwasher belting out Rod Stewart‘s If You Want My Body and You Think I’m Sexy at the top of his lungs. Yet another food service employee with aspirations towards American Idol.
After lunch, we went shopping for birthday presents —
KAREN, IF YOU’RE READING THIS, STOP NOW!
for Karen, and Valentine’s Day candies too, for good measure. We made a trip to Borders and bought:
For me, Tamara Siler Jones’s Ghosts in the Snow (hey, if I can read PBW’s StarDoc series backwards, I can read Tambo’s Dubric novels out of sequence, too!)
For Jake (think homeschooling), Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Vonnegut’s Mother Night, and The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain.
For Karen (and me, I admit it): a collection of John Varley’s short stories, and Maureen Dowd’s Are Men Necessary? That one’s a birthday present — she doesn’t know about it yet.
Jake wanted to get something for Mom that was HIS idea, so we went back to Old Town Eureka, found another gift shop, and Jake picked out a cool tee-shirt with a crane on it, while I lingered over a pack of Rider-Waite tarot cards. I’ll save my tarot stories for another day. For now, since I’m playing with WordPress for the first time, I’d like to try uploading an image:
The Fool, one of my favorite cards.
D.
Doug, the new place looks good.
I can’t wait for your tales of cartomancy. I bet they’re tarot-fying
Thanks, Scott. I do have a tarot-fying story, in fact ;o)
So this is where you’re hiding out now.
I visited Eureka a few years ago – we were doing a tour of California and one of the fixed points on the itinerary was Arcata on Memorial Day weekend, so we could enjoy the Kinetic Scultpure Race. We managed to get a good position to watch the start, and also made it to the ramp where so many sculptures came to grief getting into the water. The dunes section was a bit crowded but we could at least see fragments of sculpture caught in bushes when they had strayed off course.
Eureka seemed to be a pretty decent town. Oh, and while we were up in Redwood National Park a mountain lion wandered across the road about 50 yards in front of us. Cool.
Hi Stephen. Would you believe we keep missing the kinetic sculpture race? And not once have we gotten up early enough to watch the Alaskan geese migrate. We are such turds.
You’re very lucky to have seen that mountain lion. I’ve heard mountain lion stories, but have seen nary a one.
Thanks for stopping by.
Thucydides called Herodotus “The Father of all Lies.”
Thucydides was a fucking bore. Reading him was like watching paint dry.
Agreed. The only thing I remember enjoying was Thucydides’ account of the plague. Herodotus, on the other hand, was lots of fun, like listening to a village gossip with a bottomless memory.