Fortiter araneulas frango

Pliny says No No No to the grapes motto. He thinks I should try 'I am bold when it comes to killing small spiders'.

He says he knows it to be true. He has seen me do it with his own eyes. He says that if it would not spoil the motto, which it would, I ought to make it medium sized spiders.

I ask him why. He says that he has seen me let small spiders live, when they are in the bath or on a page of a book I'm reading. I was unaware that he observed me so closely. He is right though. Small spiders are money spiders and to kill them is bad luck.

I want him to help me with the Latin. He says he won't but he will give me some helpful advice. Don't translate it literally, try for brevity and succinctness.

Let's try the literal. Sum audax dum venit frangere parvas araneas. Yes that does sound rather clunky.

How about 'Boldly I crush small spiders'. Fortiter frango araneas parvas.

That's still too long, says Pliny. You can make it shorter. Use the diminutive.

O clever!

Fortiter frango araneulas! Boldly I crush wee spids.

But Pliny's right. I don't. Just mid-size ones. There's a fundamental problem with this motto.

Omnino Uvis

Today I'm trying out the motto, 'I am made entirely of grapes'.

Pliny thinks this is a silly motto, as I am not made entirely of grapes. But as I said to him, a motto can be something to aspire to.

I like grapes. All kinds of grapes, red grapes, purple grapes, green grapes, yellow grapes. I like the sweet yellow sultana grapes with thin skins that drop off their stalks too easily and are now out of fashion but they were good grapes and in February used to be ridiculously cheap. These are the ones I first thought I might be entirely made of, since I ate them till I burst.

I like sultanas too, the dried ones. I eat some every day with breakfast, and snack on them later in the day. The best ones are plump and soft and wrinkly, and I roll them between my fingers before I pop them in my mouth and burst them open with my teeth.

Once I heard someone saying to her friend, 'I can't stand sultanas, they're soft and jellyish inside, they're so disgusting', and I thought, this person is my opposite number. But sometimes I don't like them either. When they're small and dry and candied I don't like them, but I eat them just the same.

I like to drink red wine and white wine too. See, grapes again! If I get my DNA tested one day it will show I am a true Mince Pie whose motto ought to be: Omnino uvis.

There being no other item of a vegetable nature with which I ply myself so diligently.

Amo marem

I'm trying out the motto, I love the sea, or Amo marem.

I love the sea. I must be near it. If I'm not within half an hour of it, I feel trapped. Travelling inland, I am uneasy, and long to escape to the coast.

That is not strictly true.

This is true: When I am inland in a foreign country, I feel uneasy and long to escape to the coast.

I used to think this was because I am descended from a tribe of coastal dwellers. But perhaps I just want to go home.

My grandmother loved the sea. She liked to live close to it. She would stride along the shore, taking in deep breaths of salty air, and say "Smell the ozone!" As a child I thought that ozone smelt like seaweed.

My mother loves the sea. She lives near it. She deviates to look at it, gazing through the windscreen of her car on a windy day. In fine weather she sits on a wooden seat and dreams of sailing.

I do not dream of sailing. I do not smell the ozone as a conscious act. I am the sea.

The light gleaming dimly like eels through the shallows on a summer's evening gleams through me. I am as thick as turkish delight. I lick the apple peel seaweed and the threaded brown polyps. I fizz around a discarded corn cob, and shift a shell. I hold dolphins and lift green inflatable dinghies with boys inside. My waves run on golden rails. I outstay the orange sun, and the sand which is violet and grey. I fluoresce momentarily. Electric blue, then black.

Hortulana negans

Pliny, I said, later on.

What?

I don't like that motto. It's too ambiguous.

Nihil summatim?

Yes, it could be taken to mean that I can be summed up by a great big nothing.

It doesn't say anything about the size of it.

I know, but you know what I mean. I want something a bit more personal.

How about The negative gardener? Hortulana negans. That's personal.

It's too negative. Something about me. I love the sea. I am made entirely of grapes. I am bold when it comes to killing small spiders. What do you think?

I think I'll leave it up to you.

Motto

Pliny the Elder looks surprised. Whose is this new Latin Dictionary and Grammar? he wonders aloud.

It's mine, I say.

What do you need that for? he asks. You can find out anything you need to know from me.

You are not always here, I reply. For example you went away at Christmas. Which was when I was asked to come up with the Latin for a motto.

What was the motto? asks Pliny.

'I stand aside', I reply. Or in Latin, 'Separatim maneo'.

Very nice, says Pliny, approvingly. Very nice indeed. But not your motto, obviously.

No, not my motto. I would like a motto, if only I could think of one.

I thought your motto was 'No day without a line', says Pliny.

That's more of a reminder, I say. No, I want something that sums me up, in Latin.

First, says Pliny, you must find something that sums you up in English.

I know, I say, but nothing does.

How about 'Nothing sums her up'?

What would that be in Latin?

'Nihil summatim', perhaps.

That seems a little terse. And where am I, in that?

I left you out, for brevity.

Potatoes and Chocolate

How was your Christmas? asked Pliny the Elder.

Alright. But where were you? said I, in reply.

I took myself off, said Pliny. I do not hold with Christmas. I generally find people eat too much food at Christmas, chocolates and potatoes in particular.

Oh Pliny, I said, as to chocolates you are quite right, but there were precious few potatoes eaten at our house and my mother's on Christmas Day this year.

You surprise me, said Pliny. How did this come about? Were you not planning to cook a great turkey for Christmas Lunch?

I was, and I did cook a great turkey, and yet there were no potatoes roasted or baked with the turkey, because my daughter and I served up two salads instead, and the salads were Watermelon, Feta and Black Olive, and New Orleans Coleslaw. No potatoes.

Perhaps I should have stayed at home after all, said Pliny. That would have suited my No Carbs diet very well. However I recall seeing your Christmas Day To Do list and it clearly said 'Make Potato Salad in the afternoon'.

Pliny! Since when are you on a No Carbs diet?

Since next week said Pliny. It's my New Years Resolution. But what about that Potato Salad?

Oh, Pliny, I did make one. It was for the Christmas Dinner, at my mother's. But I forgot to take it with me. Everybody laughed.

Pliny laughed. Suddenly he stopped laughing.

Does this mean...? he asked.

Yes, it's still here in the fridge and we're having it for lunch today, and probably tomorrow. And Pliny.....?

Yes?

Help yourself to the chocolates.

The Minus Oneth Day of Christmas

Me, musing: Should I call this the Minus Oneth Day of Christmas or the Minus First Day of Christmas? Minus First doesn't sound right. Minus Oneth doesn't look right.

Me, replying to myself: Why don't you call it what it is? The Day Before Christmas?

Me, musing further: The Day Before Christmas? That doesn't fit to the sequence of Minus Eighth, Minus Seventh etc. And shouldn't it be Christmas Eve?

Me, replying to myself: That wouldn't fit the sequence either.

Me, musing: True.

( a long pause, represented by dots ) ....................

Me again, musing: I'll go with Oneth. After all, there's a Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics.

Me: So there is. And Christmas Day is the Zeroth Day of Christmas.

Me, disagreeing with myself: I think you'll find that it's the First Day of Christmas.

Me, definitively: It will be the Zeroth Day Of Christmas, for the sake of my own Equilibrium.