So, of course, I’ve seen the plethora of online news items about Anna Nicole Smith, in which the word pneumatic is often included, in the context of “the pneumatic blonde.”
And of course I’ve heard this word before, but I tend to associate it with the word pneumonia, which doesn’t seem to be working in this context. So I use my favorite mega-dictionary, www.onelook.com, where I find the “quick definition” listed as:
|
“Hmmm,” I’m thinking, “I don’t really see how that works with ‘a pneumatic blonde,’ unless it’s intimating an ‘air head,’ which I’d like to think it’s not.”
So, I click on the Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, 10th Edition link, and find what I’m looking for way down in definition #3.
| Main Entry: pneu·mat·ic
Pronunciation: nu-‘ma-tik, nyu- 1 : of, relating to, or using gas (as air or wind): a : moved or worked by air pressure b (1) : adapted for holding or inflated with compressed air (2) : having air-filled cavities 2 : of or relating to the pneuma : SPIRITUAL 3 : having a well-proportioned feminine figure; especially : having a full bust – pneu·mat·i·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb |
Whew! Glad that’s settled. Perhaps that’s where the phrase, “Would you look at those [presumably air-filled] lungs,” came from.
I drove to the Food Lion on Avent Ferry to catch the Wolfline, where I saw a sight you don’t see every day. One of the buses was being towed. And I mean its front end was jacked up in the air like you tow a car. Needless to say, it was a big-assed tow truck.
I caught a working bus into campus at just after 8:00, and got off at the campus library, where I attended a workshop on Accessibility. This is “just-in-time” training for devising my web portal design document, which contains a section in which to discuss how the design of the site will meet the accessibility requirements of NCSU.
I’m glad I attended as it’s going to make devising that section of the document easier, and it’s going to be thorough.
I met Joe at Subway, where we were both horrified to watch the guy working the drive-through making a sandwich. How we knew he was working the drive-through was that he had on a headset, which he kept touching with his gloved hand while he was making a sandwich.
Gloved hand laying the meat out on the bread. Gloved hand on the headset. Gloved hand on the cheese. Gloved hand on the side of the face adjusting the headset. Gloved hand in the jalapeño peppers. Gloved hand back on the headset, touching just a little bit of hair.
We were both prepared to jump all over him if he prepared our sandwiches, but thankfully, he didn’t. No jalapeños on mine, please.
Ben was at Flex when we got there, and he was talking to a guy named Adrian, who I had actually met a couple of weeks ago at one of the karaoke nights.
The four of us ended up hanging out all night, which included a 2:30 run to IHOP, where we waited way too long to eat food that’s, generally, way far from great.
When we arrived, “the IHOP cop” was holding down a guy on the ground outside the door and yelling at him, “Just get out of here, and don’t come back. That’s all we’re asking you to do. If you can’t do that, your ass is going to end up back in jail.” Lovely.
We got on the waiting list behind a party of three, who was behind a party of twelve. Two different groups of people waiting in the tiny lobby area, which was crammed full, took group pictures.
Two questions: 1) Who takes a party of twelve to an IHOP at 3:00 in the morning, particularly one that pretty much only has booths and tables for four, and 2) Could there be less of a Kodak moment than waiting in the lobby of a dive of an IHOP?
I said to Joe, Adrian, and Ben, “Did anyone bring their camera?” Astonishingly enough, none of us had.
This said Keystone Kop then went on a power trip, and stood near one of the doors, and made everyone go out the other door. This one guy, who came in long enough to decide he didn’t want to wait, tried to go out the “blocked” door, and Keyster just kept saying over and over to him, louder and louder, “Go out the door you came in. Go out the door you came in.”
There was absolutely no reason the guy couldn’t go out the door the kop was blocking. In fact, it was less crowded at that end of the little hallway that is the lobby, no one was coming in, and it’s not like the place was closing or anything—it’s open 24 hours. As I said, “Power trip.”