Wednesday, November 29, 2017

“Bon Appétit!”

Here’s a third piece of Lassie fan-fiction. The first two: “The ’Clipse” and “The Poet.” You can click on each page for a slightly larger view. Enjoy.














Related reading
All OCA Lassie posts (Pinboard)

And four more pieces of Lassie fan-fiction
“The ’Clipse”: “The Poet” (with Robert Frost) : “On the Road” (with Tod and Buz from Route 66) : “The Case of the Purloined Prairie” (with Perry Mason and friends)

[“You are alone in the kitchen”: inspired by the failed flip of a potato pancake. Julia Child did indeed prefer white pepper to black.]

comments: 10

misterbagman said...

I chuckled inwardly as I read Timmy's self-correction from "me and Lassie" to "Lassie and I" in light of your NSA Grammar Geek post from yesterday. The first page in that trove provides this exchange:

***

Dear Grammar Geek,
Between "a" and "an" and improper use of "I", I am about to lose it! If I hear another senior leader or GS-14/15 say, "With X and I", or "sent it to X and I", I'll croak!


Dear Kermit,

I am ending my career as Grammar Geek with your statement as it reflects so perfectly my frustration with this particular mistake. It is made so frequently and with such aplomb that I am occasionally tempted to follow suit for fear of being judged illiterate.

Ladies and Gentlemen of all grades and ranks, "I" is a nominative pronoun and is used as the subject of a verb; "me" is the objective form and is used as direct or indirect object of a verb or the object of a preposition.

Therefore, the example above should be "with X and me" and "send it to X and me."

You will easily avoid this mistake if you just think about the sentence without the first noun in the combound object. For example, you would not be tempted to say "Mary went to the store with I" or "send it to I," would you?

I think this particular mistake is made by the overly conscientious speaker. Having been taught to be sure to say "Mary and I went to the store" instead of "Mary and me went to the store," the speaker (or writer) reflexively uses that pattern whether a subjective or objective pronoun is needed.

It is a mistake that none of my readers will ever make again.

***

It is gratifying to know that the gently sarcastic lessons imparted by the NSA's Grammar Geek have reached Timmy Martin.

Michael Leddy said...

I’m laughing inwardly too.

I hope you noticed that when Timmy is talking to the hunters, he goes back to “me and Lassie.”

Fresca said...

I must read this work on genius again carefully---just skimmed it--but had to comment immediately on the naughtiness of how they saw Mrs. Child really knew her morels... Ha!!!
So much hidden goodness tucked in here & there.

(I shall return.)

Michael Leddy said...

Maybe you can come back after sup — I mean, dinner. :)

Frex said...

You know, Michael, you are really, really good at writing these stories!
They always take an absurd turn toward danger (I assume like the original show?) yet and even a soupçon of sexuality(is that in the original?)--warm eggs + morels, not to mention the more blatant French girls.
(Of course, food is all about reproduction, so innuedno might be hard to avoid, but still...)

I was just reading Penelope Fitzgerald's The Beginning of Spring, which is as much about little things that make up daily life in pre-Revolutionary Moscow as anything--
--and I thought of that reading your story---you catch the little things of daily life, such as the list of thank-you notes Mrs. Martin has to write, for instance, not to mention that the Martins feel it will be effective to talk to a boy's parents about his irresponsible use of firearms, for shame!

You've caught Julia Child so well--I can just HEAR her, and see her dropping the shotgun shells in her apron pocket. Heh.

My mother always used to follow that "you're alone in the kitchen" rule--I had forgotten that until I read this, so thank you for that.

I guess you are the Penelope Fitzgerald of Lassie fic.

More please.
--Fresca

Michael Leddy said...

Well, thank you, Fresca. I love the small details of the Lassie world.

No sex in the original. June Lockhart, quoted in the Wikipedia article about her: “In six sexless years of playing a country wife and mother, I was hardly ever allowed to kiss Hugh Reilly on the cheek.”

Uncle Petrie’s inappropriateness (remember his ee-clipse story and limerick?) is my own invention, unless there’s something in the show that I’m not remembering.

There will be more — at some point. :)

Frex said...

NOT as easy a match as Robert Frost, but I made a photo collage for this one too--
gugeo.blogspot.com/2017/12/lassies-mrs-martin-on-julia-child.html

Michael Leddy said...

Hilarious!

Had I known about this commercial, I might not have written about morels.

Frex said...

How strange---that mushroom soup ad is the first time I've seen June Lockhart---she reminds me a lot of British actress Samantha Morton.
--Fresca

also-- bink couldn't find where to leave a comment here, so she left a comment for you instead on my photo collage post:

"Bink said...

Nice story...I didn’t see a place to leave a comment on Michael’s page...but maybe he’ll see here that once again he nails the characters and spirit of the show."

Michael Leddy said...

Thanks, Fresca, and thanks, Bink.

Fresca, you mean you haven’t seenLost in Space? June Lockhart is in that series too.