The Day that will Live in Ennui
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 24/Sep/2011 22:34, 34 days ago
It's sometimes difficult to experience ennui when you live in an English-speaking Caribbean tropical paradise, but you might have better luck in francophone* Martinique or Guadeloupe.Luckily ennui quietly faded away as the day progressed and by tomorrow it will be completely gone. At that time it will be replaced by the Hash House Harrier event. No ennui there, just the potential for blisters.Ennui first moved across my horizon when I caught myself photographing a recently purchased kettle. My previous one had an accident but that's not an exciting story so we'll skip it.Taking a photo of the kettle was done for tax reasons so more ennui lurks in the wings waiting to waylay us. That tax discussion is best avoided too. Even the newspaper the kettle was sitting on was filled with average and unexciting news. The exception was the tragic news (score-wise) if you were a West Indies Twenty20 cricket supporter.But then ennui can be good. For example a 300 pound piece of metal, part of a dead NASA satellite, per the New York Times, did not land on my head today. It sounds less dangerous in metric where 125 kilograms was quoted, so we'll stick with metric.It's a good thing it didn't land on me anyway because the newspaper warned that it remained the property of NASA and you were not supposed to touch it.That's a more exciting photo than of a kettle. Maybe I'll go into space one day? Hope my rocket does not crash into an asteroid with traces of Ennui life forms coming from the distant galaxy of Boredom-Un3Green vegetables were bought at Sovereign Supermarket across the street - maybe a world record for a male purchaser, but that would not excite a female shopper.During my initial research into the blog title I learned that the correct historic quotation was "A day that" instead of the popularly misquoted "A day which". Posterity just had to tone the ennui down a tad. Or am I being cruel and just keeping the ennui level ratcheted up high for no good reason?Coffee grounds and tea was dug into the plants as part of my recycling program. Yes it's true. You are lucky I did not have a movie camera to record the event; but then you could have gone out into the foyer at the intermission for a pop-corn break. (Jamaican movie theaters have intermissions, but if you were watching in Canada you would just have to grit your teeth).I then updated my JUTC bus SmartCard, (photo not included in this blog), at the Half Way Tree terminal. In my defense, I wasn't too ennui-overwhelmed because I was en route to go swimming at the Pegasus Hotel. At the pool I met Audrey, Helen, Rafael and Delphine so I was un-ennuied for the remainder of the day.*But still, taking once last kick at the ennui. It's a French word and that reminded me of an undefined French-related word above - francophone - you know, the type of phone they have in France. So here is a francophone.Unfortunately the French fooled us all. While ennui is a French word, they don't even have ennui in France. Maybe they exported it all to the rest of the world, and just continue on their merry way in a happy, exciting, ennui-free country? This francophone was created for the 2009 Lyons Light Festival by Benoit Deseilles and Benedeto Bufalino.