[time-nuts] A Visit from St. Nicholas for Intellectuals Pursuing Interests in Horology

Doug Millar dougnhelen at moonlink.net
Sun Dec 24 01:06:44 EST 2006




An exceptional reiteration.
         "Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes"


                         Doug
                         (Graduate of the 23rd grade)



At 09:31 PM 12/23/2006, Tom Clark, K3IO wrote:

>    ·         A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS
>    FOR READERS IN THEIR 23RD
>    YEAR OF SCHOOLING
>
>    'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual
>    yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic
>    activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential,
>    including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.
>    Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the
>    wood-burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure
>    regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist
>    among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St.
>    Nicholas.
>    The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective
>    accommodations of repose, were experiencing various subconscious
>    visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving
>    rhythmically through their cerebra. My conjugal partner and I, attired
>    in our nocturnal cranial coverings, were about to take slumbrous
>    advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior
>    portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance
>    that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose
>    for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof.
>    Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing the
>    fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without,
>    reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline aqueous
>    precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian
>    itself -- thus permitting my incredulous optical sensor to peruse a
>    miniature airborne runnered
>    conveyance drawn by an octet of diminutive specimens of the genus
>    Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule, aged chauffeur so ebullient and
>    nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that he was indeed our
>    anticipated caller. With his undulate motive power traveling at what
>    may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar
>    predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through
>    contracted labia, and addressed
>    each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen ... "Now Dasher,
>    now Dancer ..." et al. -- guiding them to the uppermost exterior level
>    of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the
>    concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities.
>    As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was
>    performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved --
>    with utmost celerity and via a downward leap -- entry by way of the
>    smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebon
>    residue from the oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had
>    accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I
>    attributed largely to the plethora of
>    assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious cloth
>    receptacle.
>    His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his
>    submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging
>    amiability. The capillaries of his molar regions and nasal
>    appurtenance were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous
>    layers, the former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral
>    emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His
>    amusing sub- and supra-labials resembled nothing so much as a common
>    loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like
>    small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water.
>    Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose gray
>    fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of
>    a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it
>    was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal
>    region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a
>    hemispherical container.
>    Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
>    aforementioned hosiery with articles of merchandise extracted from his
>    aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon
>    completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a
>    single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ,
>    inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and
>    forthwith affected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke
>    passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his
>    conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted
>    oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to
>    soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the
>    seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting
>    exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the
>    limits of visibility:
>
>        "Ecstatic yuletides to the planetary constituence, and to that
>    self-same assemblage my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial
>        and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."
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