Catching up

Watch Monday for information on a very cool Jef-centric event coming up in early March. We'll give the Cleveland Plain Dealer a chance to break the news first, and then I'll fill you in. It's going to be tought to please a town that just enjoyed its first Bill Watterson interview in 21 years, but I'll try.

So many great comments, and I'm more grateful than I can say. Or have time to respond to. But I'll try.

Liz asks, “How do you do your sourdough? I'm still trying to get the hang of it.”
This may be a whole new entry, or even theme. Are you asking about making the bread, Liz, or the sourdough culture itself? Oh, I could go on. And will.

Anonymous writes, praising my 500-yard pacer, “Yeah for Jessie! Gotta love those devoted swimming friends. Where else can you get cheered for on a daily basis?!” and all I can say is, I couldn’t agree more. But I’ll add that I’ve got a ton of friends from all sorts of sports, and nobody tops swimmers for instant friendliness. It could be that since you can’t very well talk while swimming, all the friendliness gets compressed and concentrated when you do have unlimited access to air. Or that, through most of my swimming career, I really looked like I could use a friend. Either way, I’m starting to wonder why anybody doesn’t swim.

Jeremy writes, “Uh-oh, I suspect I'm in the 3/4 category. How do you pronounce your name?”
It’s Muh-LETT. Rhymes with jefmallett.net. In Jeremy’s possible defense, I sometimes get the impression that it’s my family that gets it wrong, not three-fourths of the public. Mallett isn’t a common name, but I do see it outside family reunions every now and then, and when I do, it’s pronounced to rhyme with a small rubber hammer more often than it’s pronounced to rhyme with “rides like a jet,” no matter how hard I wish.

Another Anonymous thanks Bill Watterson and then thanks me: “…thank you for almost 9 year of Frazz (which I still love)... also, hoping this is not an attempt at foreshadowing.”
No foreshadowing, sir. I’ll write Frazz as long as I’ve got readers, and if the world tires of that I’ll write something else. It’s not like I can cut hair.

Steve writes, regarding the Nice Buns entry, “The word to add to your list is "callipygia" or "Callipygian"...which is a reference perhaps to your swimming partner rather than your bread.”
Steve, that’s another blog entry (and remind me if I don’t get to it soon). But I’ve got you covered.

And that’s about as much as I’ve got time to cover this morning. Swim meet at Brighton, Mich., Sunday! Aiming to bust 6:33 for the 400-meter free, which won’t keep me from doing the other freestyle events first or running today and tomorrow. I’m enthusiastic, but I ain’t real bright.