Thursday, February 02, 2006

Sick

Yep, been sick. Last Thursday, we drove down to LA for the CFA Lecturers' Council Spring Planning Meeting (a day early, since there was no way I could teach class Friday and make it in time anyway). Thursday night we played cards with Lauren's mom. Friday we spent the better part of at the Long Beach aquarium with our friend Raechel and her boy toy Phil, then zapped out to Manhattan Beach for the Friday night show featuring guest speaker Joe Berry. Saturday morning I was back in Manhattan Beach for the main program, including training in civil disobedience and direct action techniques (i.e., how to get arrested) from a group called the Ruckus Society. I don't think we plan on getting arrested any time soon, but it was interesting anyway. (Incidentally, I've never been arrested. It's not something I'd enjoy, but our Ruckus Society trainer claimed that some lefty movement demonstration folks seem to get their kicks out of it - pun fully intended.) Saturday night we went out to Long Beach to visit with Lauren's grandmother and aunt Leslie, then came home and played more cards.

Sunday morning I woke at 3 am, sick as a damn dog. (I've never known a dog that was "sick as a dog," so I'm really not sure where this saying comes from. Perhaps I'll look it up. Perhaps not.) I slept not a wink the rest of the night, had my usual panic reaction to sudden illness (which doesn't help when you're nauseated and feverish already), finally got a little dozing in before waking up at 9 am, my first thoughts being "I've got to get together with the lecturers in Department X and figure out what their beef really is." I ended up driving us home that afternoon, despite being barely conscious, because I figured if I had any chance of teaching Monday afternoon, I needed to be closer than 320 miles from campus.

Monday, I didn't teach. I had my students discuss the essays and issues in my absence. Yesterday I did teach. Today I've got a dentist appointment. A week from today we'll be in New York!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you knew how many of the stains on our carpets came from dog puke, you would totally understand that expression!

You Gotta Be Kidding You said...

Read this.

Amy Lavender Harris said...

From http://www.word-detective.com/061202.html

"Dear Word Detective: I was recently sick as a dog, and in my fevered state I began to wonder why we use that phrase. I know that "dog" has long been used in the sense of "bad" ("dog days," "dog tired," etc.), but when did people start saying "sick as a dog" and just why is dog used in this negative sense? I thought dogs were man's best friend. I thought you might be able to shed (ha ha) some light on this issue. -- Lisa Krause, Huntington, MA.

Ha ha indeed. I take it you don't live in a house with two dogs, three cats and enough pet fur flotsam come spring to knit a whole new poodle. And I'll bet you never had to call a computer service to replace your CD-ROM drive because it was clogged with excess cat pelt. What genius designed computers to be big stationary vacuum cleaners, anyway? Something tells me Michael Dell owns goldfish.

Given their devotion to us, you're right, dogs have gotten a bad press. "Dogs of war," "going to the dogs," "hair of the dog that bit you," "dog in the manger" and the like are hardly compliments to our canine pals. ("Dog days," however, is not especially negative, as it referred originally to the ascendancy of Sirius, the "Dog Star," during the hottest days of summer.)

"Sick as a dog," which means "extremely sick" and dates back to at least the 17th century, is also not so much negative as it is simply descriptive. Anyone who knows dogs knows that while they can and often will eat absolutely anything, on those occasions when their diet disagrees with them the results can be quite dramatic. And while Americans may consider themselves "sick" when they have a bad cold, in Britain that would be called "feeling ill." "Being sick" in Britain usually means "to vomit."

So to really appreciate the original sense of "sick as a dog," imagine yourself seated in the parlor having tea with the Vicar on a lovely Sunday afternoon, when Fido staggers in from a meal of sun-dried woodchuck and expresses his unease all over your heirloom oriental carpet. It's actually rather amazing that goldfish aren't more popular. "

Amy Lavender Harris said...

Nice blog, by the way. And thanks for stopping by mine. I think that's the appropriate etiquette. Something to that effect.

I don't teach in a philosophy department, but cram as much phenomenology as possible into the humanities and geography courses I teach. Heh. The revenge of the (in)continentalist.

Doc Nagel said...

Thanks, muse - and you see my point: you yourself, self-declared phenomenologist, exiled to a non-philosophy department.

The etiquette also includes linking. So I'll just edit... there.