Lunch

So, we meet again, blogsphere. The channels of fate run deep and cold, and yet they have led me to you once again. May our time together be a memorable one. May the cheeks of the newborn calf be pink with the proper patterns of respiration. May we all fit neatly into a idea-shaped box without the need of much extra tape. May the address label be smooth upon the cardboard. May the spellchecker be functional. May and may and may. May the afternoons be filled with the "good kind of boredom." May there be a certain tree in a certain region of a certain forest which when slept beneath a certain number of nights in a row a certain wisdom may be bestowed upon a certain segment of the population of a certain planet gyrating in a certain very distinctive manner (anti-clockwise) around a certain star. May a mushroom. Mother, may I. . .? Mayfaire. Mayapple may not be a single word, then again it may. May it. May is what a linguist might call a modal. That same linguist might characterize the word, 'may,' as a "helping verb" in casual conversation with other reasonably intelligent professionals who are perhaps not as well-versed in the discipline of linguistics as the linguist over drinks (i.e. cocktails) one evening after work. One distinctive characteristic of some Southern American English dialects is the appearance of "double-modal" phrases, such as 'might ought,' and 'might could,' as in the sentence, 'I might could stop by the Bi-Lo later if you made me out a grocery list.' "Isn't that interesting?" thought the awkward dietician as she reached for her vodka tonic and smiled at her friend who was a linguist. Beside her on her left sat a couple who were both zookeepers (it's how they had met). Beside her to her right was a politician who was drinking a beer. No one could ever quite remember his first name, so they all called him "Mack" for short. It was a good set-up. The politician, whose real name was Matthew, thought they were all just mispronouncing his nickname; but he was too nice to have the desire to correct them all. On Mack's right was a 500-pound brown bear drinking a Long-Island Iced Tea made with his favorite vodka and his second-favorite gin. The bear was surprised that the bar had garnished his drink with a lime wedge rather than the more-familiar lemon-wedge. On the bear's right was the linguist. The table was round. The bear was hungry. The woman sitting two seats down from the linguist on his right (it was an oddly shaped table) was ordering jalapeño poppers-- they were supposedly good here, made with a special cream cheese blend. The brown bear really wanted a plate of spicy wings; but he was trying to impress the dietician, so when the waiter asked if anyone else was ordering he didn't speak up. The bear grinned across the table at the dietician who was stirring her vodka tonic. The bear thought she looked like Tori Amos the singer. Everyone else at the table except for the linguist (who was unfamiliar with Tori Amos) thought that the dietician, though slightly awkward, was the spitting image of one, Tori Amos, singer. This pleased the dietician greatly. A tiny Japanese man who was a dentist was thinking about time-space. For some reason, the linguists anecdote about double modals had reminded him of a book he'd been reading in his spare time (which was usually on Sundays and Mondays when Sawa Dentistry Associates was closed. Apparently Mondays are statistically the worst days to go to the dentist in terms of random shootings, etc. So, Sawa Dentistry Associates would remain closed on Mondays as well as the usual Sundays (for sundry religious observances-- it was, after all, the Bible Belt). The dentists name was not Sawa. His name was Nichizawa. Sawa was his brother-in-law's name. Their dental practice had been smiled upon by the Buddha for going-on nine years now. Sawa had been Nichizawa's brother-in-law now for almost eleven years. Sawa was the elder of the pair by five years, so although Nichizawa had received his DDS a full three years prior to his brother-in-law, out of courtesy he had insisted that Sawa's family name also be the name of the dental practice. Someone was saying ". . . one for the treble, two for the bass, three for the ladies, four for the blaze. . ." Everyone was feeling mellow after a round of drinks. The politician wondered how many of his friends smoked marijuana on a regular basis. The linguist wondered about the etymology of the word 'bong.' The dietician wondered if her wig was on straight; but resolved not to worry about it, after a quick glance in the "Guinness" mirror on the back wall revealed no visible hair anomalies. The zookeepers were whispering in an annoying anti-social sort of way about the new Hippopotamus amphibius at the zoo. The bear was fantasizing about the cream cheese blend inside of the bar's version of jalapeño poppers. TO BE CONTINUED...