High noon...

...as I write this.

Napping didn't work out yesterday, so I hied myself down to my office and spent some time doing invoices. While doing them, I was disappointed to see such small numbers coming up at the bottom of the sheet (at least, in the context of how hard I worked the past four days), but once the dust had settled and I looked at all three invoices, it actually came out to be a pretty reasonable sum.

I even got my travel expenses filed. Hooray!

I don't know why, but something is driving me to continue to clean the office. The floor is now cleared and vacuumed, though besides my desk, which is currently clutter-free, virtually every other horizontal surface has at least a foot of stuff on it. I just have to apply myself a little at a time.

* * *The Electronic Frontier Foundation encourages all to submit comments regarding the bill introduced by Fritz Hollings (D-Disney) and cosponsored, among others, by Diane Feinstein (D-Hollywood). Every time I try to write something, it comes out all in a blather... I can't seem to stay on course to make any one single point. Part of it is realizing that politicians aren't terribly interested in principles, or the long term, or what is best for the country (that stuff's that's only useful in the speeches that are dished out to the suckers voters). They are interested in staying in office (hence the frenzy to raise soft money now, before the recently passed campaign "reform" law takes effect) and pleasing their paying constituents . (See how easy it is for me to go off on a tangent?)

* * *Lee arrives tomorrow at the Albuquerque airport. Galina will be going down to pick her up, which means it'll be me and Drew at the store for much of the day. On the one hand, I'm really looking forward to seeing her; on the other, she's been distant lately (or so it seems), so it's hard to tell if the feeling is mutual (i.e., to what extent does she really want to be here, or is it only to see the niece and Sasha?).

* * *Just got a call a couple of minutes ago to see if I'm willing to telecon with the same bunch I worked with last week. Sure, I said, so now I'm expecting a fax with all the details. I think I'll go drop by the Radio Shack later today and see what they have in terms of a wearable headset (or something to let me listen hands-free).

In the meantime... it's off to work!

Cheers...

What one does with "experience"...

I've taken to spontaneously hugging Drew from time to time, because I love him and maybe, in some way, because I'm trying to make up for a perception on my part that I never hugged him enough when he was growing up.

As an afterthought, I asked him, "I don't make you uncomfortable when I hug you, do I?"

Without missing a beat and with a completely deadpan face, he replied, "I just hope you're not a Catholic priest."

I almost hurt myself laughing.

Well, at least he's getting news from somewhere.

* * *While not as far gone as one enthusiast I met via eBay a few years ago, I do like to acquire dictionaries and similar reference books. I figure that, eventually, I'll need them. Right now, for example, I'm translating something associated with the Centers for Disease Control and have been hauled out of a jam several times so far by Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary

One item I picked up at the ATA Conference last November was The BBI Dictionary of English Word Combinations. It's not your run-of-the-mill list of words.

In just about any language some words just "go together" (linguist-speak terms these "collocations"). In English, for example, one does not "perform" a crime, or "do" a crime, or "accomplish" a crime - the proper word is "commit." Write anything else in English, and the educated reader will notice. (The same "commit" applies to "suicide," although I've seen the use of suicide as a verb, e.g., "He suicided to avoid capture by the enemy," and it grates.)

Anyway, this little book came in handy a few weeks ago when I needed a verb to go along with "retribution," something that would describe having "gotten" some from someone. The dictionary suggested "to exact," which may be a little flowery, but did the job.

Just now, I needed to find a word that goes with "experience" and signifies the accumulation thereof ("accumulate" comes to mind only because the Russian word that goes with "experience" in my text - наколпенный - means to "accumulate," or "stockpile," or "build up"). The dictionary suggests "gain," "gather," and a few others, but my favorite is "acquire."

* * *There are times when I think, perhaps, that my mind is going because I can't recall such things on my own, but I really don't think that's the case. I think my difficulties lie with an increased blurring of the distinction between Russian and English in my mind... I'm finding myself sometimes expressing myself using words from one language, and sentence structure from another. How much of a difficulty this is remains to be seen.

In the meantime, I am 9 pages through the 20 for this job, for a brand-new client. Back to work!

Cheers...