day seventy

with the new job keeping me more than adequately busy for a little while i decided it's time to cross off some of the more easily-achieved (read: just gotta drop some cash) goals. so, with my amazon christmas gift card (did i say drop cash? sorry. i meant cash in on my family's holiday-inspired generosity) i purchased a word-a-day calendar (#8), a lunch box (well, bento box technically - they have such cool designs) and reusable sandwich bags (#95). hooray! pictures of the bento box and bags being put to good, earth-saving use will come when amazon delivers those items to my door, but this arrived today:




i went for this word origin calendar. and since it's already mid-january i've got some catching up to do. allow me to drop some of my newly-attained knowledge:

poodle comes from the german pudelhund, which means "puddle dog" and originally referred to a much larger breed that would hunt in shallow waters. puddle dogs! i hate poodles but that is adorable.

ninja comes from combining the japanese nin and sha - words that mean "invisible" and "person," respectively. funny how that works.

and finally, xanadu. it denotes a kind of earthly paradise, much like shangri-la, but it comes from genghis khan's summer palace shangdu. marco polo visited the palace in the early thirteenth century and introduced the word into several european languages, including english. then olivia newton-john threw some roller skates on it and gave the phrase real relevance.

oh! a quick last minute discovery to add: the backs of each of the calendar days have little extras - word searches, jumbles, and yes, trivia! someone got her (gifted) money's worth.

oh oh! one more thing. i went to another one of kyle's shows last weekend. it was fantastical. but i realized that it probably serves the purpose of this endeavor better to only count towards my goal those live shows that feature bands i haven't seen since i started the list. that is to say, no repeats.