Today’s guest post comes from Tiny Clyde.

I have a birthday this month, never mind which day. And don’t go wishing me happy birthday anyway.

“Every idiot who goes about with [Happy Birthday] on his lips, should be boiled with his own [birthday cake], and buried with a [birthday candle] through his heart. He should!”

If I could have my way, which I cannot, of course, my birthday would be ignored. It’s not anything about growing old. I do not grasp how one day of aging is more significant than any other. As a matter of fact, I go through each year saying I am older than I am. If you ask me how old I am on January 10, 2012, I will not remember and have to subtract years. So I will subtract 1944 from 2012 and say I am 68. Each December I am surprised to realize that I am not as old as I always say.

My birthday problem starts as a child. It was a ritual to put up our Christmas tree on my birthday, which I was expected to consider a gift. From about age ten the gift included the task of going into the woods, selecting the tree, cutting it down, and putting it in its stand. I am not claiming I had a bad childhood. I had a very good childhood, except every year on my birthday. The standard joke was to say that I was being allowed to open one Christmas present early. My mother loved standard jokes. She wore many a standard joke down to the nub, ground it to powder, and still repeated it. I am still not sure that it was always a joke. In any case, the wrapping on my present or presents was Christmas wrapping, a simple economic measure. My mother loved simple economic measures even more than she loved wearing out the same jokes each year.

A few days before Christmas (some unspecified number) is about as bad a time as there is to have a birthday. My granddaughter’s birthday is December 25. So far she has not felt slighted, but when she becomes a sulky teenager, that may change. But I think my date is worse because people, me especially, make a point of overdoing her birthday–in proper birthday wrapping.

My sister’s birthday is March 27, which happens also to be my wife’s birthday. Now think about it. Is there any better time for a girl to have a birthday, even though it may fall on or very near Easter? Think of all the spring clothes she can be given, or, as in my sister’s case, have made for her. So my sister’s birthday was a feast of presents. You know how those girls are—they consider clothing actual presents. Then on my nineteenth birthday, my sister further buried my birthday under familial distractions by getting married that day.

My childhood birthdays happened at a time when I had already received everything needed for the winter. It was also a time of the year of limited money in our family, as opposed to the spring when more money was at hand. We also had a seldom-seen and difficult grandmother who doted on my sister because my sister had been given her name. She would write on the letter with my sister’s presents how in the rush of Christmas she had simply forgotten my birthday.

Now, (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) I’m not carrying a grudge, especially against my sister, with whom I was as a child and teen extremely close and with whom I still have a close bond. It’s simply that I joined the parade years ago and decided to ignore my birthday too.

(Before I ask the question of the day, I do want to clarify that I would not swear to any of the above under oath. Not one word of it.)

What’s your favorite quote or scene from Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”?

Last night I had a strange dream that the leaves falling off the trees in my yard were actually words. When I gathered them up they seemed to make an indecipherable mound of text, but when I allowed myself to fall into the crunchy sentences, it all made a surprising amount of sense. In the spirit of autumnal thought collection and the pleasures of diving into a seemingly random word-pile, today’s guest post comes from that master raker of notions, the one-and-only tim.

Photo credit: HD Leader.

the trick to it is not to believe that you have any idea where you are going. the times i get into trouble is when i think I know something. i really do much better when i am aware that i am lost. my thinking brain goes to sleep on a regular basis and the difference between me in a new surroundings vs me at the kitchen table is night and day.it is not only perception, it is fact that the stuff that comes out of my brain in a comfortable setting is not nearly as creative as the stuff when i am looking at the surroundings and soaking in the environment at the same time as i am trying to function. i do love my rituals. the morning bath with the blog in front of me is much preferred start to my day vs the wake up grab a tea and hit the road for an early morning meeting on my way to stop 1 2 3 and 4 before the dust clears. but i am not convinced that comfort is the best mode to exist in. i am often times jealous when I see a person who takes no chances and knows how everything is going to come out in every situation they run into or put themselves in a position to deal with but I know for certain I can not be that person. I cant sit in a chair and enjoy the scenery or a thought for no more than a short stint before i start twitching and needing to find a different angle on my presence. computers are a blessing and a curse. i remember when i started on my computer side of life and i was reading about peter or paul of peter paul and mary and he was saying that he would get on the computer after dinner and get involved in a conversation with someone in a chat room and the evening go by unnoticed and by the time he looked up it was 4 am and he was cranked up and had a hard time getting to sleep. i am little bit that way although i don’t go to chat rooms. (yet) i do get on the computer and one step leads to the next and before you know it i am studying sleeping bags and the differences between down filled bags and the new space age materials. oh yeah space age… what was the date of the explosion that killed the school teacher and I wonder what henry bien is doing who I met that day and came back from lunch to discover the tragedy that had occurred as we walked back in to the land of cubicles….cubicles… oh yeah, dilbert cartoon receptacles. and before I know it i am so far away from the trip to the boundary waters I was contemplating i am looking up henry bien to see if he is still in texas where he was last time i saw him 10 years ago. not likely he moved around a lot. how do people who move around a lot do it? make friends, make a life, find the assets of the area and start over one more time. where would i like to visit for an extended stretch? iireland? new orleans? mexico? new zealand? wouldn’t it be cool to be able to just go? what would it take to make that happen today? and it goes on and on and on…. i used to have trouble reading a book because i would realize as i looked at the page in front of me that i had no idea when i tuned out but i had never seen or registered any of the words on this page before. i could go back 2 or 3 pages and still not recognize anything. i had been on a day trip while my trained eyes went from line to line and turned the page as we progress through the story in the book i am holding. i wonder sometimes if dementia is a ride that takes you away from the thoughts you are trying to get to or if it just is an out of control hodge podge that makes no sense to the victim as well as the helpless onlookers who get to deal with it.

is getting sidetracked a blessing or a curse?

Today’s guest post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale.

It’s a very creative group of Babooners here on the Trail, and we sometimes use words not found in your standard English dictionary. So Jacque and I (back in April) put together a little Baboon dictionary, ultimately dubbed the G.O.A.T. (Glossary of Accepted Terms). I’ve been keeping track of some real gems that have appeared since then, and here’s what y’all have been adding to the mix. If you’re a newcomer, it may help explain some (but certainly not all) things. And if you’re an old hand, it will serve as a reminder of how we talk ’round these parts.

Baader Meinhof – defined by the Pioneer Press’ Bulletin Board as “encountering a piece of previously unknown information twice within a 24 hour period.” (It’s surprising how often this comes up.) See Joy of Juxtaposition for clarity through contrast.

Blevensing – going on and on about something, as the Austin Lounge Lizards (et al.) do in the chorus of the song, Old Blevins: “Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah…” and as follows: “Niblet is sometimes described as “long-suffering”… Imagine having to spend your days listening to [Mr.] T, blevinsing away…” (See Out to Pasture in upper right corner for more on Niblet and Mr. T.)

Cannardly – a more elegant way to express mixed ethnic heritage, as in: “He said he was Cannardly – so many different ethnicities that you can hardly tell…”

Ectopic – out of place, as in: “Ectopic comments are always welcome!” which followed: “Ugh, I … meant that reply to go under Beth-Ann’s comment.”

Fusspot – a very fussy person, as in: “Fusspot is a term created by my husband, who is much more of a fusspot than I am.” See also Troublespot, and Lucy in Peanuts for the variation, fussbudget.

Hooby – either a cross between a hobby and a hubby, or a hobby that’s a hoot… as in “become involved in a hooby or something that is real…”

Incumbent bike – a bike that’s going to stick around for another 2, 4, or 6 years.

Ingrown narcissism – self-regard that has become problematically internalized, as in …“if we stop for ice cream we may not have enough money to pay for Timmy’s operation to fix his ingrown narcissism”.

Jamicized: to be clothed in your jammies, as in: “There is an ice cream truck that frequents our neighborhood. We do not patronize that [ice cream] truck (partly because sometimes he comes around after we have called it a night and are jamicized, thank you very much).”

Joy of Juxtaposition – a confluence of references to something that was already in your knowledge base; see Baader Meinhof for clarity through contrast.

Latent utility – usefulness in the future, and a reason to keep an item, as in “There are the remaining painting and carving supplies, which I may one day use, and I consider latent utility useful.”

Pawlenty (verb transitive) – to hide something from the public, and then do what you want, as in: “the masses don’t realize until after they’ve already been pawlentyed.

Punctuational – on time for the blog, and keeping track of it throughout the day, as in: “Didn’t we tell you how important it is to be punctuational?”

Rojak (roh-jark) – a Malaysian colloquialism meaning a mix or a salad, also used to describe language, e.g. using several languages/dialects in a single sentence. See also Cannardly.

Schaumkessel – a German word for boiling or foaming kettle, or a relative who acts like one; as in this interchange: “My maternal grandmother was a Schaumkessel…” “Do you know what Schaumkessel means? It has such a cool sound.” “I think it means boiling or foaming kettle… and she kinda was….”

Snort – short for “That made me laugh so hard I’m snorting coffee (or some other beverage)”. Also a baboonish substitute for LOL or ROTFLOLAWM (see New Acronyms). Snort could be an acceptable short form of the TBB’s mission statement.

Spedition – a shopping expedition that include ice cream, as follows:
”When my son was younger and had to accompany me on errands I started to call them expeditions thinking it would make it easier to jolly him into going. The name was shortened to speditions. At one point I upped the ante and offered ice cream to make the journey sweeter. Then with an elephantine memory my son proclaimed the definition of a spedition included ice cream every time. ”

Spiritual tithe – a fine paid to a good cause, as in: I even ENJOY paying my library fines because I feel as if it is my spiritual tithe to an (almost) holy space.

Storage brains – the (often older) family members who recollect the family’s historical information, “Unfortunately all storage brains… have died so we have not much more than she could find in public records.”

Troublespot – those relatives and acquaintances who have been difficult or naughty. “It would be really unfortunate to be a fusspot and a troublespot all in the same day.” (See also Fusspot)

Wikiwalk – a “pernicious online phenomenon”; specifically, an unintended, possibly long and convoluted journey through the internet, as in: “today you are a lost soul on an endless internet search on into the time tunnell where minute turn into hours and the days go by without any indication that you were ever there. a little you tube video, a piece of information from the wikipedia archive on the topic.. off into the vast amounts of miniscule detail folks have assembled on whatever the topic.”

New Acronyms:

OFTLOW – oh for the love of wool

ROTFLOLAWM – rolling on the floor laughing out loud and wetting myself

TTFN – ta-ta for now (from Winnie-the-Pooh)

WOT – way off topic

What language would you like to be able to speak, and why?

Today’s guest post is by Clyde.

I just read From the Fair, the delightful autobiography of Sholom Aleichem, the Yiddish author of the Tevye the Milkman stories and many others. If you like Fiddler on the Roof, you might like to get a deeper feel for the world of Tevye and his village. You might also like to read the original stories, which are if anything more charming than the musical. He writes the autobiography in third person, even though he repeatedly makes it clear it is his own real life story, which adds another dimension to the narration.
Reading the book has inspired me to get back to work on my long-neglected fictionalized story of my childhood, wishing I had anything like his narrative gift.

Aleichem, whose life was contemporaneous with Mark Twain, was often called the Yiddish Mark Twain, to which Twain responded, “Tell him I am the American Sholom Aleichem.” They shared much in common, such as an allegorical pen name. Twain’s name means essentially “safe water” in steamboating terms. Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich chose the name Sholom Alecheim because it is both the common greeting in Yiddish and a blessing of peace upon another person. Their chosen names also have a sonorious ring to them.
Both men were mostly self-taught, were raised in poverty in backwater villages, survived many family tragedies such as the death of a parent in childhood, made and lost a couple of fortunes due to bad investments, and were very successful public speakers. Both were brilliant at characterization, were masters of dialogue especially dialects, and did much to invent the literature of their culture.
I have included a photo of the statue of Aleichem in Kiev. It is wonderfully ironic that Russia and Kiev honor him this way, considering how the tsarist regime treated Jews and that Aleichem had to hide when he lived in Kiev because he did not have a license to live there, as required of all Jews.

Unlike Twain, Aleichem was deeply religious and superstitious. For instance, his tombstone in New York City lists his death date as May 12a, 1916 because he was afraid of the number thirteen. He died too young before finishing From the Fair. The abrupt ending is unsatisfying, but well, L’Chaim to his life and all of ours.

If you were to use a pen name, what would it be?