Taxing thoughts

A friend reviews Little Miss Sunshine today leading me to compare Mary Lynn Rajskub and Renee Zellweger, adding them both to the "Lunch Dates I'd Love" list I begin to wonder who said, "Wanting to meet the artist because you like the art is like wanting to meet the goose because you like paté."  A woman I think from around here somewhere, a novelist, passed on I believe.  Then I begin to ponder why I want

... when a grad student with whom he fell in love fell in love with the second-best Proust scholar

in my friend's review to read

... when his lover, a grad student, dumped him for the second-best Proust scholar

Taxing my brain again when what I really need to do is figure and pay my Federal and State income taxes for 2005.  August 14th draws near.  The weather here today is miserable, there's a real chance taxes might get paid today but who did say that about art, artists and geese?   Ankle deep ponds of last night's rain litter the gray streets during the sunrise walk this morning with gray overcast skies nearly hugging the ground.  Damp, close, windless, a bit more heat and New Orleans or Houston would come to mind.  Ancient gray Schnauzer snoring at my feet now.  Out the window green peppers and clusters of red cherry tomatoes tugging the vines down to where the Westie can graze.  A dog who eats tomatoes, who knew?  Pick tomatoes and peppers or pay taxes?  The morning is young still.  How many taxes could a pepper picker pay, if a pepper picker paid ... 

 

Which is better

a dog who active verb ...   or   a dog that active verb ...

which is correct, does one or the other convey a different meaning?  If there is a rule, can we break it to get a different meaning?  Is it like Uncle Sid's middle aged housekeeper riding along Westheimer from downtown  between Louisiana and Montrose Blvd for the first time, fresh off the plane from Guatemala going to meet her new jefé, eyeing the crowd on both sides of the street saying softly to me, "Mira, Jorge, los femininas.", using the contrast of gender between article and noun to avoid the vulgar M word?  Can we cross languages like that and keep the mood, keep the meaning?  Subtlety, subtlety, all is subtlety except penalties and interest.

 

Taxing thoughts.