Saturday 9 January 2010

Friday 8th January 2010 - We're in the Money

          My North American Agents have forwarded Rocinante's papers, so I can arrange to take possession of his inheritance.  This requires a trip to Bowling Green, where the nearest office of the insurance company is.  It is also the nearest point where one can buy beer to go, so I will have to make an integrated trip.
          The parkway and interstate are, of course, well-salted, but the big trucks are going as fast as the are allowed, and I am mindful of those conditional signs on the bridges.  In these conditions, I slow down for trucks to get well away.  Because it is so cold, and the snow is so dry, they are actually quite a stirring sight, sweeping a bow-wave of snow along the verges, with occasional large chunks flying off the top and smashing onto the road.
 
          The insurance office has the requisite number of grown-up ladies (that's one!) to sort everything out smoothly, explaining cheerfully, that, since I'm giving them power-of-attorney, it doesn't matter if I don't sign anything else.  She wants me to sign the POA with my full middle name, and I discover, to my surprise, that that's actually quite difficult to do.  I make a bit of a hash of it, but it won't matter.
          In no time at all, I have trousered the blood-money, and am off.  I'm really very grateful to the insurance company: they couldn't have been more helpful and considerate.  And, as it turns out, generous.  As Dulcie directs me to the booze store, I find myself musing on the venial thought that I really ought to have organised this accident in the last week of my trip.  This is really ever so much easier than trying to sell a used vehicle in a limited timescale.
          As I'm filling the trunk with beer, I catch a glimpse of the black plastic sacks of things recovered from Rozzie, and feel a pang of guilt.
 
         Although I was brought up in Glasgow, I was actually born in Somerset, and lived there, in the American usage, momentarily.  On the way back to Glasgow, I see a surprising road sign:
[n0703]
         When I get back to Glasgow, I visit the nearest branch of my eastern bank, which is almost across the road from the motel.  When I get the transaction records, it turns out the street is called Wall Street, and this is the "Wall Street Office" I've been dealing with.
         Since it's Friday, and I've been depositing large sums of money on Wall Street, I decide I should join the 'happy hour', and avoid being out late in the cold.  This plan, unfortunately, to use the Scots, gangs somewhat agley later that night.
         I find myself sitting next to a young man from, variously, New York and Florida.  We naturally talk about the weather, but, as usual, my accent brings up the subect of ancestry, with which most Americans are obsessed.  He is telling me of his Scots-Irish ancestry, when he suddenly says his grandfather was born in a little border village in Fermanagh called Beleek.  Now, one of my grandfathers was born in Beleek.  What are the chances of that?
         Then a novice grown-up lady dragged us all off to a mexican bar, and the evening degenerated into a haze of highly-coloured furniture and big jugs of beer.  My car, wisely but unexpectedly, vanished from the story, and I got dropped off at the motel.  So I'm in for some exercise tomorrow morning.  Now, one of the features of Sancho Panza's donkey is that is vanishes unexpectedly from the story, and reappears, sometimes just as unexpectedly.  I must get that name: it might fit this new car.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

His name was Dapple.

Joe said...

In the John Ormsby translation the ass is referred to as 'Dapple'.
In the Samuel Putnam translation it does not appear to be given a name as such, being referred to only as 'the ass', 'the donkey', or 'the grey'

In Spanish, (the noun) donkey = rucio.
As an adjective relating to animals, rucio = silver-grey.
Similarly,
Rucio monteado in Spanish = dapple-grey.
The word for a mount (horse) is montura and the verb to mount is montar

From this might we not conclude that the name for the ass emerges from varying translations from the Spanish?


In Part 2 Chapter LV Sancho and Dapple fall down a pit and have to be rescued. Bear this in mind when it comes to naming your new mount!