11 January 1999: Snuffed

Channel-hopping through Jeopardy the other day, I heard this answer: "This structure near Stonehenge was also used for [whatever] but was built of wood." I had no idea. "What is Woodhenge?" I asked of the television, because that's a ludicrous answer. (If I were in a proper Monty Pythonesque mood, I'd've guessed "Witchhenge.") No contestant so much as guessed. Then Alex Trebek said, with his usual pretentious omniscience, "What is Woodhenge?" I laughed like a foghorn.

This is so vexing. Also so intriguing. I've been meaning to look it up for a while because I know the current definition isn't Jane Austen's. So: from Merriam-Webster, proof:

Main Entry: snuff Function: transitive verb
Date: 15th century
1 : to crop the snuff of (a candle) by pinching or by the use of snuffers so as to brighten the light
2 a : to extinguish by or as if by the use of a snuffer -- often used with out b : to make extinct : put an end to -- usually used with out [an accident that snuffed out a life]

What's English doing that a word's definition can flip to one wholly opposite its first? You used to trim the wick of a candle, to snuff it, to brighten its light. Now you snuff your candle to extinguish it. When I'm Empress, these definitional wanderings will be more tightly shepherded.

I subscribed RRP to Bride's as an engagement present. It only allows a full year's subscription, but one of the least fun things about being married is that you don't get to coo--or howl, depending--over the contents of such magazines. So she gets to pretend to be engaged for another four months. I did this with unspoken apologies to Regina Barreca, who pointed out that there is no Groom's magazine.

During one wedding ceremony I attended, the groom cried and the bride did not. One excuse was that the bride had trained for this moment her whole life, whereas the groom had not. That might sound like feminist cynicism, but it was kind compared to other explanations I thought of.

This is in contrast to my own wedding, during whose ceremony I giggled and before and after which I cried. During the stupid dance, which was stupid because neither of us can dance ("This music speaks to me!"), I noticed for the first time that someone had been and was and would be wielding a video camera. I was about to be enraged but however one conducts oneself on video is captured in motion and sound, which is exactly why I'm against them at weddings and exactly why, upon seeing one, I couldn't react. I ended up apologizing to the wielder, later. For two points, both during the ceremony. First, CLH, my one attendant, dropped the handkerchief she clutched in addition to her bouquet. A classic and defining CLH expression overtook her face, "Oops what have I done now I wish I could laugh but I can't just at this moment." Without the video I'd've missed that. Second, since I wasn't in the rehearsal, when my turn came to speak that was the first time I spoke the words, and I was nervous, and I tittered. I didn't remember even immediately after when ABW laughed at me for laughing my vows, but there I am on the videotape, giggling "I, lisa..."

I brought the video to my office when I got back from our honeymoon. For non-participants, I guess video gives a better perspective than photographs. The first audible words are "It looks like you got beat up." That's a whole nother story, but it's not mine.

Anyway. I went to the post office over lunch, me and the rest of 16th Street Denver, to buy stamps. I guess I hadn't considered that the rate change would ensure a worse rush than any I encountered during Christmas. That might be because I went to the post office exactly twice during December, both times before 11:30 in the morning. This "merchant station" has three windows from which to post packages and another counter that sells "Stamps, if you want stamps only." I hoped the stamp-buyers had cash and eschewed the parcel line.

And what's this? The new Year of the Hare stamp I was all pumped for, it being a rabbit thing and me being a Watership Down femme, turns out to be a licky stamp. It is not 1999 so I can lick stamps. Sigh. My fastidiousness meant my new stamps feature a measly Uncle Sam hat. No rabbit. I might get licky stamps eventually just so I can have the rabbit, but I needed some one-cent stamps also to use up the 32¢ currently festering in my DayRunner. Two licks per letter is too many; but if I had to lick thrice I could count "Ah-one, ah-two, ah-thrrrreeee." When I was close to the head of the line, the clerk said he had only licky 1¢ stamps. A sigh arose from the queue: "No sticky, just licky."

This coming from the woman who hears "Blister in the Sun" in a jingle for trash bags, is it so bizarre that the next rhythm in my head was "Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo."

At the top of the line I asked the clerk if the H make-up rate stamps ever expire. A stupid question if I had remembered that the make-up stamp from the last rate increase was G. No, he told me, they'd always be worth one cent. "Good," I smiled, chatting as I paid him, "because I need them for my left-over Christmas stamps." The clerk, a friendly fellow every time he's served me, was concerned: "Unless by then you forget about them." "That's unlikely." "Well, then," shaking his head and handing me my change, "you're better than the rest of us." I couldn't quibble with that, even though he just heard me ask if the H stamps would expire.

What else could go wrong at Dot Org? I needed the Nordic Track when I got home. Note to self: Paul Simon's Concert in Central Park is not sufficient work-out music. Further note to self: when (tracking? skiing?) alone at home for Blake to feel all sorry for himself, live music like Concert in Central Park is too stimulating or infuriating for someone who is struggling to be a Good Boy any way.