The Great Vowel Shortage

The Great Plotnik, Arabic coffee in hand, plots out his day without The Great Ducknik to advise him. She is in Minnesota at a family reunion, on her father's side of the family, the Welsh side, and The Great BZWZ is with her. BZ will meet her cousins, some for the first time, and they'll all get to spend time with the family matriarch, Aunt Alice. No one has better press than Aunt Alice. Plottie has never been to Minnesota, so BZ will report to him about whether Alice lives in Wonderland or not.

Before Ducknik left, she printed out pages of the family tree. Many of her antecedents were born in Wales during the Great Vowel Shortage, in towns like Llanchyllanchytwl or Gfftlychwnch. When they came here they simplified their names to Jones or Owens or Hughes or Thomas or Pugh or Jenkins. As some of you may know, The Great BZWZ has a very Welsh name. In the old country it was spelled BzLlanchyllanchytwlgfftlychwnchWz.

Meanwhile, The Great PD, FiveH and Baby I are in New Orleans. Yesterday, PD worked on a Habitat for Humanity house in the Upper Ninth Ward (near the last school in which he taught, next to the Desire projects -- yes the Streetcar named Desire really did come from someplace named Desire, which had become a not-too-desirable neighborhood of toxic industry and half-abandoned housing projects until Katrina washed it all away). He sent a text message yesterday saying, among other things: 'It's HUMID!' 5H will work there today.

They actually purchased a trip to New Orleans from a woman who had been in the audience at the Ellen de Generis show. Before the show began, de Generis, who is from New Orleans, handed out free tour packages to everyone. Of course, most people immediately turned around and sold the packages on Craig's List. PD bought one.

But back to Plotnik's day today. He may have to do a rewrite on his obit for a local merchant. Doing that research was no picnic. There are people who do obits for a living. What a gig! "Can you tell me something about your mother?" "(Sniff) Yes. She was (snarf) very (snurf), um (blow nose)."

He may dig up the other side of the iris bed. He may put down new soil and level off the first half, replanting the native irises and the daffodil bulbs he bought yesterday. He may move the plants off the deck for the annual cleaning (which hasn't been done in three annuals). He may work some more on his story for the Voice on the breakup (sniff) of his old basketball (snarf) game (blow nose).

The Plotzers and the Caribbeans play a three game series tonight, ON TV, and Plotnik doesn't even care. Jeez, how bad is that?