Friday: Hili dialogue (and lagniappe)

January 29, 2016 • 6:00 am

It’s Friday! Even Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) will rest a bit this weekend, getting ready for a busy week in Old Blighty. The good news is that my Indian visa has emerged from the bureaucratic labyrinth, so I’ll have my passport back for the England trip (travel to India commences in March). Wikipedia announced a “this day in history” event for January 29, 1967: “The ‘ultimate high; of the hippie era, the Mantra-Rock Dance, takes place in San Francisco and features Janis Joplin,Grateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg.” I lived through the Sixties and have no memory of that event (there’s a joke here, but I won’t make it.) On this day in 1737, Thomas Paine was born, as well as Anton Chekhov in 1860 and Germaine “No Platform” Greer in 1939.  Deaths on this day include those of H. L. Mencken in 1956 and Robert Frost in 1963. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is pretending to conduct a scientific experiment. She’s rather crafty these days!:

A: I suspect that when you bite through this cord we will not be able to roll up or pull down the blinds.
Hili: This is a wobbly hypothesis but we have to test it.

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In Polish:

Ja: Podejrzewam, że jak przegryziesz ten sznurek to nie będzie można ani spuszczać, ani podnosić rolet.
Hili: To jest chwiejna hipoteza, ale trzeba ją sprawdzić.

And Leon’s mountain vacation ended; it was too snowy for him to essay long hikes. But he’s helpful on the way home:

Leon: Are we going to drive through Szczaworyż?

Malgorzata’s explanation: Szczaworyż is a village. It is a very strange name which means “sorrel rise”. I suspect it is definitely unpronouncable for any non-Pole.
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Extra bonus: a tw**t from John Cleese:

10 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue (and lagniappe)”

  1. Being Polish and a fan of your work, I wonder if the indian travel is intended as a lecture tour? For I’am in India and I would love to attend.

  2. Our cat trashed about half the cords on our window blinds until our daughter came up with the idea of using clips (hair clips, chip clips, binder clips) to hold the cords above where the cats could get them. Just bunch them up, and clip the ends to the top of the cord.

    1. My one cat ate off all the little plastic ends on the pull cords on several of our blinds before we noticed. We also put them up where he couldn’t get to them. He’s aggravating that way.

  3. Ms Moxie Grace OwlFace, Mr Cleese, our sweet, rescue Maine Coon tortie wasn’t 21 pounds but nearly. Has been nearly three years since her dying.

    Thank you for the darling pix of yours.
    His name ?

    Blue

  4. Szczaworyż isn’t that hard, but I grew up in a neighborhood full of Leszcsynskis, Wroblewskis and Grndzlewskis.

  5. Janice Joplin was NOT featured at Mantra-Rock Dance – or Anywhere until 1969. In ’67 she was a member of Big Brother & the Holding Company who was featured.

    RIP Paul Kantner.

  7. so I’ll have my passport [back]

    So you’ll be getting your second passport organised shortly? It’s not that difficult, and if you’ve got documentary evidence of exactly this sort of event .. it should be a shoo-in.
    Obviously I can’t speak for the US passport authorities. But it would be a shoe-in in Britain.

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