Back to School

I start my classes, tomorrow. For the first time in years, I'm not really looking forward to a semester. Linguistics -- what was I thinking? And 19th Century British Novel? Shit.

Lia is learning to swim, now. Right. LEARNING. Who am I kidding? She's a lab. The only one learning anything is me -- stay out of her way when she's swimming. For instance, Doug went to the far end of the pool and threw the Frisbee towards the shallow end (FYI -- a bit of research discovered that Frisbee is always capitalized -- as is "Kleenex"). Lia launched off the top step and got the Frisbee right away. Herein lies the problem: because the Frisbee got pushed further down in the water while she was grabbing it -- I panicked. I mean, here is my four-month old puppy DIVING to the floor of the pool to get a Frisbee -- now she can't pick the damned things up off the floor of the family room because she can't get her mouth under the lip when it is face down. So I envisioned her drowning trying to get the stupid thing up. I tried to pull her up (and, in fact, I did pull her up) and she scratched me about 30 times in the process. She really wanted the Frisbee.

Back to the "Frisbee"/"Kleenex" thing. I am a little perturbed about this. I mean -- what else would you call a Frisbee? "A flying disc?" I think not. And how often (at least in Chicagoland) do you hear someone ask for a "tissue" versus a "Kleenex." Rarely, if ever.

And even though "Kong" has other names (the really cool dog toy that I put peanut butter in for Lia), it is still "Kong" to most dog lovers.

Linguistics, indeed. Absofuckinglutely. Unfuckingbelievable. And that's a whole 'nother story (P.S. Heard this said on television the other day -- I thought it was just me that infixed that expression -- Chris -- can I use that as a verb? And I still maintain that "to repercuss" is a legitimate verb).