A Missive

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Originally uploaded by podso.

Dear Bonifice and Emily,

Thanks for the drop by visit. Just like in Jane Austin's day, only you did not leave a calling card. Neither did you have tea nor some refreshment. Next time we will rectify that. I enjoyed seeing the new writing paper. Beautiful, and to allow me to have the unwrapping of the exquisite package as you watched, was just a memorable way to break up a busy afternoon of messy house rennovations.

The way the letter is an 8 x 11 folded piece of stationery brings back to my mind spouse's first letter to me. He wrote on plain paper folded in half and penned it in his very neat, small handwriting (he now only prints tiny tidy letters [as in alphabet letters, because if I was referring to the missive type of letters, I would have to say not all are tiny, but for sure they are tidy].) Anyway, I was in the hospital with a four-in-one wisdom teeth extraction when the letter somehow arrived at my bedside (how that happened is now a mystery not worth solving.). He made comment about the formation of the letter into a sort of book form. "It brings out the scribe in me, don't you think?" he wrote. I have never forgotten those words for some silly unknown reason, or else it's just one of those incidental things that clutter the cobwebs of the mind. But, say ... they have become prophetic haven't they, for he has become a writer. Speaking of letters, here is the missive word information:

"From Middle English (letter) missive ,(letter) sent (by superior authority) , from Medieval Latin (litterae) miss?vae , feminine pl. of miss?vus ,sent , from Latin missus , past participle of
mittere,to send .]"

So, 40 years ago, Miss Wilson pounding Latin into my head while her arthritic hand struck the desk in a rhythmic motion, I guess paid off, at least for a word today.

Come again, any time whether or not you have "show and tell."