Friday, June 27, 2008

Cottage Daze

My summer at the cottage is about to officially begin, so you'll be seeing a little less of me here, and my photos will be more on the "wild" side.

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I usually get up early when I'm at the lake, which is highly unusual for me, as I'm not a morning person. But the sun comes screaming into the windows around 5:30 a.m., and the light is perfect for photographs, so I can't resist.

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I like to take the kayak out, with Buddy stuffed in the hatch, since he hates to be left behind and will chew up papers or Kleenex or underwear in protest.

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I'll paddle slowly around the point to watch the sun rise over a lake as flat as a mirror. Sometimes, in the heat of the summer, the cold water creates a pink mist rolling on down to Black Bay. It's interrupted with the odd heron or a trout leaping out of the water, or a mother loon carrying her babies on her back. We have a resident kingfisher who pretty much ignores me while he dives for fish a few feet away from the dock. If I can capture a good shot of him, I'll be in like flint at the photography club I just joined. Seems one gets bonus points for capturing elusive birds, and the kingfisher is a notoriously difficult one. Who knew?

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Our summers are so short and fleeting here in the Great White North that I soak in every bit, as though every day is my last, and I give thanks daily in gratitude. I normally take a long morning walk on our country road, but there's a bear hanging around and we have a huge raspberry patch on our property, so I'm a bit nervous this year. However, I can always sing as I walk, a guarantee to send any bears running for cover. After my walk, I come back sweaty and dusty, so I like to jump into the lake to cool off, sometimes with my clothes still on, sometimes - if there are no guests or fishermen lurking about - with my clothes flung off in the bushes. Then it's reading, board games till the wee hours, or if I'm alone, I'll write for hours.

This is where you'll find me 99% of the time:

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And this is what I'll be looking at:

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I'll be in touch. Honest. If you don't see as much of me, it's because I'm out fishing.

The end

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9 comments:

Lottery Girl said...

Yet another terrific post with stunning photos! Love the bug with the flowers, love Buddy, love the cat's butt, the dock...

K--I'm on my way to join you at the cottage!

laughingwolf said...

great pics... have fun, pam! :)

[of course, you meant 'elusive' ;) lol]

BB said...

Hey - welcome back!!! Sounds like quite a trip... and the cottage sounds amazing!!! Who couldn't write in a place like that??

One thing... we say "In Like Flynn" as in Errol Flynn (I guess). I'm not quite sure why. What does "In Like Flint" relate to?? Sorry to pick, but am always intrigued by 'word stuff'. I did a post a few days ago about how we mangle the English language!

Love your photos - you should be utterly sated with all that photographing and writing and soaking in views (lets hope the canoe holds!).

And good luck with the kingfisher pics!

BB

A Novel Woman said...

Lottery Girl, come on down! Or up....

YES, I meant 'elusive' (kicking self) so thanks LW!

Hiya, BB! You're probably right about flint/Flynn. I've always said flint, but never thought about whether or not I was correct. Don't have time to look it up, though. I'm OFF to the LAKE!! Whoo HOOOO!!

klasieprof said...

Lovely stuff doll. Just love er Ly.

Have a great summer.

klasieprof said...

When I read your question, my first thought was that the expression
was related to Australian-born actor Errol Flynn.

Flynn was quite the ladies' man and, according to Wordorigins.com, the
term was popularized in the mid-1940's because of his reputation for
sexual prowess and because "everything came easy to him on the silver
screen."

There are also ties to Errol Flynn and the phrase that make reference
to his 1943 acquittal for the statutory rape of a teenage girl.

Word Origins
http://www.wordorigins.org/wordori.htm

Roots Web
http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/meanings.htm

While this seems to be the prevailing theory about the origin of the
phrase, as it turns out, this is *not* correct.

On THE ALT.USAGE.ENGLISH FAQ FILE by Mark Israel, the phrase's first
meaning is listed as "in favour, assured of success, in an enviable
position." Israel goes on to state that "Some writers allege that it
originated in allusion to Edward Joseph "Boss" Flynn (1892-1953), a
campaign manager for the U.S. Democratic party during Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's presidency. Flynn's machine was so successful at winning
elections that his candidates seemed to be in office automatically."

http://www.english-usage.com/faq.html#fxinlike

This is confirmed on World Wide Words, where they also point out that:

Barry Popik of the American Dialect Society found an example from
1940,
as well as this from the sports section of the San Francisco
Examiner
of 8 February 1942: "Answer these questions correctly and your
name is
Flynn, meaning you're in, provided you have two left feet and the
written
consent of your parents". To judge from a newspaper reference he
turned up
from early 1943, the phrase could by then also be shortened to
I'm Flynn,
meaning "I'm in".

http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-inl1.htm

All of the sites that I found (even the ones that incorrectly tie the
origin of the expression to Errol Flynn) acknowledge the confusion
over the phrase because of the 1967 movie "In Like Flint," which took
its title as a wordplay on "In like Flynn" and caused many people to
mistakenly believe that the phrase was originally "In like Flint."

Search terms used:
etymology "in like flynn" OR "In like Flynn" OR "In Like Flynn"

on Google
://www.google.com/search?q=etymology+%22in+like+flynn%22+OR+%22In+like+Flynn%22+OR+%22In+Like+Flynn%22

and on Yahoo!
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=etymology+%22in+like+flynn%22+OR+%22In+like+Flynn%22+OR+%22In+Like+Flynn%22

Google category:
Etymology
http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Dictionaries/Etymology/?tc=1


Hope this "clears things up" for 'ya,
Katwoman

BB said...

Holy Kimmoly Katwoman!!! That's some impressive research there... and very interesting!!! I feel much richer for reading it (and clever for casually dropping the initial question into the comments section here).

Now do you know anything about Kimmoly (probably needs a *sic* needed here!)? As in Holy Kimmoly?

Heh heh
BB

A Novel Woman said...

Well, it's official. I have the most erudite readers on the planet.

And Holy Cannoli, Bush Babe, are you sure you have the right expression?

BB said...

Pam.. you are messing with my mind. Stop now. Actually, its pretty messy already... so go ahead. Do your worst!!!
:-)
BB