Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Hibernate

HIBERNATE, v.i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in globular masses. They have apparently been compelled to give up the custom and account of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia a whole nation of people who hibernate. By some investigators, the fasting of Lent is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to which the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was strenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not wish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.

2007 Update: To conserve one's potential by resting and working.

19 comments:

TLP said...

Whatever.

Wait! Resting and working? What's with the working thing?

TLP said...

You can run but you can't hide frum Nate.

First and second. Maybe third.

TLP said...

I'm not sleepy. Nor tired.

Anonymous said...

Hibernate: To meditate with one's eyes closed. To renounce activities you don't enjoy all that much in the first place. Example: "He did not date that winter, owing to a state of deep hibernation."

~Mo'a~ said...

Hibernate.....that explains it.

Anonymous said...

Hibernate: halcyon daze?

i was beginning to think you'd started your hibernation early this year, what with the time this post went up, and all. made me yearn for those halcyon days, when i could sneak a comment in before noon(ish), ESTLP-Time. ; )

Anonymous said...

Hibernate? Finally I word I'm all for. It's one long nap. Purrrrfect.

Jamie Dawn said...

TLP grabbed the first three spots. She wasn't hibernating this morning!

Bierce's definition was quite long and boring; I'm sorry to say.
Yours was quite goodly.

Mark 3:7 WEY: Accordingly Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the Lake...(to hibernate)
I added that last part.
I'm just doing my part to help you maintain a holy blog during the week, so you can be free to sin on the weekends.

The Old Mule said...

hibernate: to use last year's bacon for this year's sleep.

Doug The Una said...

TLP, do we waste more potential in bed or at the office? Well done on the win, place, show finish.

Andrew, he was right not to date that winter. She blows cold.

That's it, Mo'a. How was your nap?

Neva, A bad internet connection is a form of hibernation, I guess.

Jenna, I bet you wear a spangled blindfold to bed, don't you.

Jamie Dawn, thank you for saving the sheep that fell in the ditch on Saturday.

Haha, Mule. I can do that!

Nessa said...

I hibernate daily, from 9 to 5 at my desk.

Ariel the Thief said...

hibernate, like heaven, keeps fresh after death only.

Anonymous said...

Hibernate -- what teachers do in the summer.

Anonymous said...

HIBERNATE, v. i. To greet your dear friend Nathaniel on the street where he lives. In Maine. In January.

OW!! Memo to whom it may concern. Never wake up a hibernating teacher. Especially one who tickles. Sheesh.

mireille said...

What's up with the mechanical paw sucking? That sounds vaguely pornographic. I mean, I'm allowed to use the word pornographic, aren't I? AREN'T I ????? xoxo

Doug The Una said...

Nessa, what's that? I was sleeping.

Ariel, meanwhile we have showers and air conditioning.

Quilly, you really are getting smug lately.

Amoeba, the puns prefer a cold climate.

You are, of course, Mireille. But you are not allowed to explain why that particular phrase took you there.

Anonymous said...

I've tried that method and it doesn't work.



I should hibernate, after my large faux pas on the alphabetized indexing system.

Ariel the Thief said...

Mireille, I used to know a girl who said her brother loved sucking on her toes and still did it when they grew adults. she was laughing and insisted nothing else was going on. I believed her because she was drunk.

Doug The Una said...

See you in Spring, then, Actonbell?

Cooper, that was more of a faux toe. Nothing to lose or gain sleep over.

Ariel, we all know that girl.