Blateration

First, and foremost:  The Ozzy Update:

Dr B called last night to say Oz was doing fine, and had eaten his dinner.  But strangely, when he'd done the radiology test, he found a small ball of something in his stomach--he thought it was a dense wad of grass, which would make sense as he ate enough grass those last few days to feed an entire flock of sheep--but bizarrely, he also found little bones in his intestines.  Now, that was a total shock as he's never been given bones in his life, nor can we figure out how or when he could have eaten any.  Dr B said it looked like bird bones.  (And let me say here:  eeewww..!!).  There were several times last week when he was in the wooded area next to the house, in the middle of the pitch dark night, but I can't imagine--being as sick as he was--that he would have eaten a desiccated bird.  I asked Dr B what he was going to do (I'm dreading to hear that surgery is the next thing for Oz), but he said there was nothing to be done, and eventually these things would work out of his system naturally.

The phone call this morning was good.  He's eating well, and unless something very untoward happens, he gets to come home tomorrow.  That's really great news.  Maybe I will actually get some sleep tonight.

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Yesterday, or rather overnight yesterday, we got our first snowfall.  Nothing up here on the mountain, though it was really cold.  I took a few photos as it was such a surprise to walk out on the front deck and see snow across Roseburg.

Three photos, from the same place in the front yard, but at different ranges.  I love the wintry effect of the shots between the gnarly old oak trees.

We're supposed to be getting our first, real snowstorm over the next few days, though it's sunny and warm at the moment.  I'm not sure how I feel about the snow aspect, especially as it's to be quite bad on Tuesday with temps at 18* and loads of the white stuff.  Oh well.  If there's one thing we truly can't do anything about, it's the weather.  Might make for some good photos, if nothing else.

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The publishing house that does the Oxford Dictionary has started a website to Save The Words.  Words that are being dropped because they're either obsolete, rarely used, or have no meaning in the 21st century.  Some of these words are absolute gems and it would be a shame to lose them, so the publishing house came up with this great idea for people to adopt a word, and pledge to use it, say it, write it, email it, whatever.  I came up with eight words that are just too cool to be forgotten.  Two words in particular I plan on using in my book saga, mainly because they evoke some traits of my characters:  Scathefire--a great destructive fire; Nepheliad--cloud nymph.

A few I chose to adopt:

Blateration:  to blabber, or chatter

Latibule:  Hiding place

Veteratorian:  Subtle (which is a pretty funny word that doesn't seem to have anything to do with subtlety, does it?)

Labascate:  begin to fall, or slip (a word I should be very familiar with)

Perantique:  Very old or ancient (I love this word!!)

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An amazing bit of news:  The Budget truck is gone out of the driveway..!!!!  Woo hoo...!!!  After unrelenting bitching, nagging, harping complaining on my part, yesterday Alan told Rick (the contractor) to get rid of the flaming thing.  Since the garage floor is basically done, they unloaded the truck, put everything in one corner of the garage, and Rick drove it away.  What a relief.  There's still some finish work (of course there is), but for the most part, by tomorrow, we should be done with this wretched ordeal.  Now, whether the floor will hold the primer/paint/sealer is another story, but as I keep saying--over and over and over:  It's just a bloody garage floor people..!!!!!