Frugalista

I'm feeling sorry for myself that the oldest daughter is off to Cuba on an early morning flight from Edmonton and I'll be heading back to work instead, very sad. She was dealing with all the last minute details of packing and getting to the airport etc. Nice problems to have.

I'm hoping to not have to deal with the following 'word of the day' problem (quarantine) when I head back in tomorrow:

It used to be that anyone wishing to take their dog with them if they were moving from North America to England had to stick their dog in quarantine for six months when they got to England so the English authorities could be certain that the dogs weren’t infected with rabies.

The rules have changed somewhat, but before they did a friend of mine moved to England for a few years and brought along his dog. The dog is a kind of malamute sort of dog. One of those Alaska-husky-type-looking-dogs. I believe they were able to visit the dog during its incarceration and things turned out okay.

But the remarkable thing they learned was that their dog was actually white. Since it couldn’t get grubby while in custody it went through a full shedding cycle and came out completely clean and almost unrecognizable.

The dog was held for six months, so that’s something over 180 days and according to my dictionaries that’s not a quarantine.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary the root of the word is kwetwer and comes from Indo-European and means “four.”

Between Indo-European and English it passed through Latin where quadraginta meant “forty.”
By the time the word quarantine got into English it meant “a forty day period” and such a period was traditionally applied to several different things.

Jesus Christ was supposed to have fasted for 40 days and in the 1400s the church used the word quarantine to refer to the place where he spent that time.

When a woman became a widow it wasn’t always the law that her husband’s property should become hers. During the time it took to sort out what she got out of the deal a 40 day period was allowed her to continue living in their home. This period was also called the quarantine.
I won’t even get into the heartbreak of losing your partner and then getting turfed out of your home.

It was Samuel Pepys in 1663 in his diary who first noted that 40 days wasn’t what it used to be. In his case it wasn’t dogs being isolated but people who might be bringing human disease into England.Pepys said they were required to be quarantined for 30 days and that although this obviously wasn’t 40 days there was a general acceptance that the word no longer actually meant 40 days, but “it signifies now the thing, not the time spent in doing it.”

But I digress as I was going to describe this daughter as a frugalista. Apparently the definition is of someone able to dress cheaply but fashionably and that would surely describe her. She was telling me her Value Village shopping and Boxing Day sales scoring for her vacation wardrobe. Have a great time Bimmy. Travel safe. And speaking of travel safety this news story:


KAMPALA (AFP) - Uganda's police warned male bar-goers to keep their noses clean after a probe found a gang of robbers had been using women with chloroform smeared on their chests to knock their victims unconscious.

"They apply this chemical to their chest. We have found victims in an unconscious state," Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) spokesman Fred Enanga told AFP.

"You find the person stripped totally naked and everything is taken from him," he said. "And the victim doesn't remember anything. He just remembers being in the act of romancing."

Enanga, who explained that several types of heavy sedatives had been used, said he first came across the practice last year when an apprehended thief named Juliana Mukasa made a clean breast of the matter.

"She is a very dangerous lady," the official said.
While early investigations suggest that the gang may consist of dozens of members, the source of the sedatives remains unknown.

"We don't know exactly how they get these materials," Enanga added. "That is something that our investigations must crack."

He called on men, particularly travelling businessmen who tend to carry a lot of cash, to take caution."It's a serious situation and people have to be aware."

I think to console myself I shall do a bit of scrapping with all my beautiful new supplies. Had a lovely scrapbook from the western daughter which I think will be perfect for a western record of our fall travels there. This fall she'll be home for a friend's wedding and so we'll have eastern photos.

Not sure if I posted a link to this blog previously or not as I found it in a file but couldn't locate it in the archives. It looks like a fun posting for those downsizing and apologies if it's a repost:

http://lovinglivingsmall.blogspot.com/