Voices from home

Skyped it up, and spoke to all at home today. All at home being everyone except J-dogga. Thanks Jimma. Nice of you to miss talking to me again! It was really nice to chat with them all though, as last time I rang I only got onto Cat. Spoke to Richo first, as he picked up the phone.

"Who is it?"
He really needs to learn to answer more politely.
"Hi Richman! How are you? What have you been up to? I'm so glad you're home this time!"
"Did you bring me back a pot of gold?"
"Uh... no..."
"Did you get me a leprechaun then?"
"Uhm..."
"Or at least a four leafed clover?"
"Not exactly..."
"Nice sister you are Mish"

Miss you too Titch.

So, Richo told me a bit about what he's been doing. Kind of.

"Did I tell you about the play thing I did at school?"
"No."
"Yeah. I did a play thing at school."
Pause while I wait for elaboration. It is not forthcoming.
"So... what did you do in it?"
"Just play stuff like we always do."

Very informative. Just in case you want to send me an email sometime Rititch, I'm still wondering what exactly your role in this 'play thing' was.

Mum was next in line, was especially good to talk to her as she's been in Seattle for the last two weeks at a medical conference. It went really well, which I was glad to hear. We chatted for a bit, then she told me that Richo had written a letter to the Macquarie Dictionary requesting that they investigate a potential error. Mum read it out to me, and I typed it up as she was talking because it was so brilliantly hilarious. Richman, you're a champion.

During school activities I read your dictionary a fair amount. I'm writing regarding a possible misprint or mistake in the Macquarie Dictionary. A scanned copy of the page in which the mistake is made is attatched although I took the liberty of writing it also to ensure you receive it.

'a' - Used in the following ways: 1. before a noun means a single but not a particular member of a general group. 'She is a woman.' 'Do you have a pen.'

The problem is that it's not very enlightening (to the receiver of the definition) to use the word you are trying to define in the definition. Is it acceptable to do this? Perhaps the only way to explain or define a word that is not definable without using itself in the definition is to use an example or examples. It is certainly not easy for a human to be able to comprehend a word that has been explained using a definition involving the word in question. This mistake is in fact quite a common one. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts about this.

Return address on rear of envelope.

Yours sincerely,

Master Richard Phillips

He is eleven. And does actually read the dictionary. Remember Titch, I want to get an email from you as soon as you hear back from them.

The phone was then passed onto Dad, and we talked about various matters. Apparently Mum has been getting highly frustrated because all her news about Ben and myself comes through Cat (and occasionally James) via facebook. This of course means she's always weeks behind where we actually are, a detail especially aggravated in Ben's case. As a result of this grave indiscretion on our behalf, she has been driven to acquiring her own account as an attempt to keep better track of our whereabouts. (I am sorry Mum. We do try.) As Dad so beautifully put it:

"She's just registered for facebook. I don't think she has any friends."

I'll be your friend Mum.

Finally I got to have a word with Cat. Ha. Anyone who knows Cath will realise that one does not have 'a word' with her. I may not talk much, but she sure does. I love listening to her ramble though, so it works out nicely. We talked for quite a while, but I don't think either of us were anywhere near finished with the conversation when Beryl and Alex called me for lunch. Slightly frustrating as she purposefully took the phone last so that we wouldn't have to stop for anything. But still, we had a good chat. I miss my little sis. Am a little nervous that there will be no niche for me to fit back into when I get home though, if the stories I'm hearing from the frisbee field are anything to go by. Oh dear. Please share Flip.

So... what did I do then? Had lunch, spent a bit longer on the computer. Quite a bit longer actually. Went upstairs to have a nap, (Beryl and Alex always have one in the afternoon), but couldn't sleep so did some drawing. Had dinner. Soup. Yum. Spent almost two hours chatting with B & A about Irish history and everything I picked up from the trip. They had a fairly good idea of it already, so were able to fill in some gaps. It somehow became 11:00pm, so yeah. Off to bed. That was about it for the day. Lovely and uneventful.