reveries - communion

86. Freaking Awesome Passage

By now Penelope, Icarius' wise daughter,
Had set her chair across from the suitors
And heard the words of each man in the hall.
During all their laughter they had been busy
Preparing their dinner, a tasty meal
For which they had slaughtered many animals.
But no meal could be more graceless than the one
A goddess and a hero would serve to them soon.
After all, they started the whole ugly business.

(Odyssey, 20.422-30, Lombardo trans.)

There's a lot of eating in the Odyssey. And there's a right way to do it when you're a guest in someone else's house. The suitors have violated the unwritten code of xenia badly, and thus, their final "meal" they will be "graceless" and "ugly." What a freaking awesome final sentence.

22. Five Guys Boogers and Flies

At first, Sydney cackled with joy when I called it this. Now she gives me a look of disgust and says stop. I shouldn't call it this, but I can't help it. I mean it as a term of endearment--I love this place. It's perfect. Sydney loves it, too. Which is why I should not exasperate her with gross comments about boogers and flies. She's a big girl now, and too mature for such things. . . .

Except for most nights when she asks me to read her a story, and to include my world famous embellishments--the gross-out references to bodily functions I'm sure those authors meant to include but left hidden between the lines. It takes the eye of a literature professor to see them. To point out that after supper Snoopy usually takes a poopy may require a doctorate in literature. She's particularly fond of the thunderous "toot" that peels the paint off the walls, especially when the source is some prissy princess. All of her favorite literary characters have managed one of these, though they're authors forgot to spell them out for us.

Just doing my job as a father and a literature scholar to point them out to my five year old.

MMMMM..... burger.