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Tale Of Exploding Assassin Worries Security Officials

I was at Spec’s recently buying some Scotch glasses and one of the buyers recognized me as the guy “exploring Scotch.” I was half-flirting with getting a bottle of that easy-drinkin’ Macallan 10 year (great for a low-end price) when he pointed me to Battlehill. It’s also a Highland single malt, but this has an extra year of aging but is also distilled at the Macallan distillery.

It has warm, rich, honeyed notes. Hooray for Spec’s!

I passed 2 months on the 10th of this month, but with Lauren’s birthday, work, school, etc. I didn’t share that I am now 9 pounds lighter than when I started. The upshot of all this is that I can again fit in size 36 jeans.

I even got an unsolicited Facebook message saying “Are you losing weight?.” Music, pure music, to my fatty, fat, fat ears.

So here’s where I am in the scaling up from Couch to 5K: I now do 3 pairs of run-5/walk-2. This was going along swimmingly until last week when SHIN SPLITS OH MY FREAKING GOOAAAGGUUH THIS HURTS entered my life. With that extra minute of running (time three), something really started bugging my shins. So I had to take last week off.

I was worried about getting back on the bandwagon but I got some great advice and found a real-deal, rubbery-bouncy track to run on here in North Austin. So, today I headed over to the middle school and did the afore-described program without incident.

Good motivators also came last week during Lauren’s birthday festivities.

I reached into my closet and put on my size 36 jeans — I put them on and it wasn’t pinchy at all when I wore them. I then tried on a pair of size 36 slacks and — again — I was able to wear them. So for Lauren’s birthday I ate steak and cheesecake (uh, not a highlight in a fitness régime) in size 36 pants.

This puts me about 205-6 down from 214. I hope to break the 200 barrier before Thanksgiving.

I really enjoy my Latin classmates, they all are fine students, committed to the cause of studying something strictly for its beauty, its import, and its bond that it makes us feel to yesteryear.

As an advice to anyone in languages let me recommend that you always be bold: come in, try to do that horrendous Dutch guttural ‘g,’ fully nasalize your French vowels, etc. When you’re unafraid to err, you open up the possibility that you will actually learn.

I say this as preface because one of my peers made an error which induced a laughter such as I have never seen before in a language class. We all err often in our translations, so I mean to say that while it’s common, acceptable, etc. to err, rarely does it have this comedic value. The fellow himself seems to have gotten a good laugh out of it as well and appears to be an excellent Latin scholar in the making so I’m going to assume sharing the laughter will be a wish he is behind.

In Book 3 of the Metamorphoses Ovid relates the tale of Echo and Narcissus. You may recall that Echo is a nymph who can only repeat endings; Narcissus is (fatally) beautiful. Echo, having seen this boy (he’s 16 in the story), burns to be taken by him.

To clarify the scene for the class we had two students enacting the actions and relating the dialog while a “director” in the class read forth the action. À mettons le scène Narcissus has lost his friends, is alone in a dark wood, and begins to get the idea that he is being followed.

Narcissus’ first question is:

“ecquis adest?”

“equis” means “who” and adest means “to be present”, it’s opposite is “absent.” So, Narcissus basically says “who’s there?.”

So the “director” in the class said:

“The strong boy had been separated from the line of his friends and said…[cue to actor to relate the dialog of “equis adest” translated from Latin to English]”

Thespians speak of having “commitment” to the scene, boldy letting go of fear and acting with ones full voice, body, spirit. This fellow portraying Narcissus would have made Stanislavsky applaud with his commitment.

[Boldly]: “A HORSE IS HERE?!”

Our actor, on stage, nervous, and reading quickly had confused the word for “horse” (equus) with “who” (ecquis). I suppose the notion of Mr. Ed lurking in the Arcadian woods behind this most-beautiful of humans popped in our minds and the giggles started.

“Well hello, Narcissus, how bout them fatal flaws?”

After of few minutes of doubled-over laughter we recovered enough to continue, but it was a great moment showing the humanity and joy that a cameraderie centered about learning can yield.