Two unrelated incidents today. First, following from my last post, a very unsatisfactory bath last night. Water was scalding hot, so I turned on the cold tap, and tried to estimate the exact moment when the temperature would be just a bit too high. And failed. Slightly too cold. On with the hot tap, but I ran out of hot water at just about the same time as I was running out of room. The level was well over the Plimsoll Line. Baths are like ships -- very hard to steer. I sat and soaped in near comfort for a few moments, then got out, shivering.
If this were one of those Did you know blogs, I'd tell you about the Plimsoll Line. I figure you guys know everything. And I have to say the derivation is only sort of interesting. Not like ... oh ... checkmate, say. (There are better ones than checkmate but suddenly I can't think of any.)
Second incident is a moment of pure visual horror -- very rare for me. Not that I haven't been horrified in my day. (I remember the twins at age one literally exploding inside their little suits on a trip to my parents. The car smelt like a buffalo wallow in the heat of the summer, and I did not -- did not -- want to change the diapers. When I got the suits off them they -- the suits -- weighed more than the kids did.) But movies do not, as a rule, scare me. Imo watches them all with one hand permanently at the ready to cover her eyes, and Thea screams during the G-rated trailers, but I just yawn.
Not Sunday night. I was flipping to the short film channel during commercials of the football game and saw the most visually horrifying thing I have ever seen. Quiet picnic moment, Mom and Dad lazing while the kids play, when there is a scream. Mom comes running over. A wasp is buzzing very near the baby girl asleep in stroller. Big sis is frantic. Mom soothes. The wasp lands on baby's face. Mom a bit worried now, bends forward, but too late. The wasp crawls across the sleeping baby's cheek, pauses for a fraction of a second on her lip, and then disappears inside her half-open mouth.
I shouted out loud. The calmess of the scene, and its speed, absolutely terrified me. Instinctively I clicked back to the football game. Real anger, sweat, struggle, noise -- even real injury -- was easier to watch than this fictional descent into my Jungian basement.
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