Thursday, February 10, 2005

"And two hard-boiled eggs."

The movie: A Night At the Opera, 1935 (George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, screenwriters, Sam Wood, dir.)
Who says it: Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx) to the ship steward, as he adds yet another item to a long food order
The context: each time Groucho finished ordering something we hear Fiorello (Chico), stowing away in Groucho’s stateroom with Tomasso (Harpo) and Ricardo (Allan Jones), adding two hard-boiled eggs to the order. And then Harpo honks his horn and Groucho says, "make that three."
How to use it: to indicate yet another couple items on an improbable list.

Late with this post—sorry Clair and faithful readers! (Reader?) My day has been one of those dozen hard-boiled eggs, what with multiple client projects nearing fruition and each one seeming to need mucho attention today. It’s a good thing, I suppose: I’m nearly finished editing a book that my client is publishing independently (not “self-published” please,) I am rolling up my sleeves to edit a book manuscript for a client that will be a big fall business book, and, well, there are all sorts of myriad other things. Then on top of that I had to quickly deal with accounting problems (don’t even ask!) that had to be resolved today.

And so it’s 8pm (8:30…) and I’m just posting. Ahh. But nota bene Ellen: I am not complaining about having to post. I loves the blog. It's an honor to add my two hard-boiled eggs. Tomorrow I'll see about having them for breakfast rather than dinner though.

It’s snowing here in Cambridge, a wet and heavy flurry that still feels more like a reminder than a real hassle. A couple of weeks ago we had the real thing, a storm so great I made a sledding hill in our front yard. We’ve had warm weather for the past few days, which has almost created enough space on our small city street to allow everyone to park. Now that we almost have parking spots again this wet snow conspires to cover them back up.

4 comments:

Madley said...

I'm a faithful reader, every morning -- I just don't comment all the time! I enjoy both Answer Girls, no matter what time the entry comes in :)

Tom Ehrenfeld said...

You're too too kind. We are all Answer Girls in our hearts.

Anonymous said...

Tom, I forgive you for the late posting, but not for misspelling my name... you know better.

And I must say, considering my attitude toward hard-boiled eggs, this is a quotation you'd never get from me.

Tom Ehrenfeld said...

Misspelling your name...moi? (For you readers late to the party I've changed the original post....)

Mea culpa...