Eccentric

I've another lesson on English etymology. You can fast forward to the end or do what Mandy is doing right now. Lying on her side next to me groaning. She knows we're gonna leave in a minute for milk from the Amish. The cat is outside, feet curled around his body on a rug I washed last week. He's lord of Kickapoo Center mouse land. The rug is gracefully aging on a deck railing in the rain until I find a spot out of the elements for it to dry. I wouldn't have washed it if the cat hadn't barfed multi-colored cat food over one corner. Yes, I have digressed.

Eccentric: not concentric, not central or referring to a centre (my spell checker dislikes that word). If you make further excursions down usage lane, it means irregular or odd. Specifically persons.

What makes one person eccentric, another odd and a third psych-neurotic and crazy is a matter of opinion. It's also opinion as to what the world calls normal.

I'm sitting on the stairs to the second floor. Mandy will sit behind me on a higher step. Often she'll stick her tongue in my ear. Sometimes it's referred to as a "wet Louie" such as when I was in high school back before the telephone and invention of the gramophone. Except we didn't stick our tongues in another's ears. We'd wet our pointy finger and insert it into a victim's ear. Oh, I have digressed.

Sean Connery plays an agoraphobic author in Finding Forrester. In one scene, the young kid he's mentoring, Jamal Wallace, asks why Connery is putting his socks on inside out. Connery explains, "The seams are on the inside. It's more comfortable wearing them inside out. " Eccentric? No. I tried the technique when I put on my Red Wings boots this morning. Much better.

Eccentric would be the neighbor from Cuba who raises Elk. Disregard that he's heavy into Vodka, it's a matter of dispute on the sense and sensibility of raising elk here in Southwest Wisconsin. I won't get into the donkey, llamas, pot bellied pigs and other assorted critters grazing on the hills behind his place. You can't sell elk meat. The fences around his place have to be specially made so that deer can't get into the elk herd and intermingle. CWD plays a big factor in this law.

My dog is eccentric. I mentioned the tongue in the ear thing. If you ask her for a kiss, she'll get her face right close. Then she'll lap her tongue across your mouth. Usually it's a version of a French kiss. No, I didn't teach her this. Then I'd be more than eccentric. They lock people up for doing things like that. Despite the claims that a dog's mouth is cleaner than our own, I avoid dog kisses. Chicken feet, rooster heads, old dog bones buried for weeks, ratty pieces of rawhide, discoloured, brown and slimy have passed those lips that shall not touch mine. The scientific explanation for her dog behavior is simple. She likes the smell of my breakfast breath, despite strong coffee fumes. Breakfast sausage and pancakes are her favorite. A lingering waft, a special froozy fume of food on the humans breath is manna for the pup.

Eccentric? Take my wife, please. Pah dum duh drumroll. This is a tough one. She monitors my blog. It's a way to glean info that our early morning fast and furious routine doesn't allow. Mention Johann is back with his old girlfriend and her ear is to the ground for details. I'll take the safer way and avoid the dramatic, the sensational, the weird. Remember, she's a kickboxing champion. At night Dawn has to have a robe, small coverlet, some remnant of blanket or afghan over her on top of an already mountainous pile of covers. She says, "I like the weight," as a matter of fact. The really eccentric part. Usually her feet stick out from under the covers. Oh the burden I endure.

On to the Amish for the morning news.