brass monkey...

Well the weather here is just a tad cooler, not so much that I have abandoned my open toed shoes as of yet. Let’s just say that I stretch the perception of summertime to her limit, bordering on denial, yet nevertheless enjoy it so. Trust me, I will switch to boots, sweaters and the like as soon as it gets as cold enough to freeze the balls off a

…brass monkey: that funky monkey.

No, not as in the Beastie Boys, albeit that is a great song to cruise with on a crisp fall evening with the sunroof drawn (vicarious comment here, no sunroof in my brat-mobile, sigh). Actually, the saying is military in origin. Yet a fun one to toss around in conversation… try weaving that into the water cooler chats!

Basically, a brass monkey is this-- a rail made of brass that holds cannonballs on the deck of a ship. Not sure to which war it is traced, although I understand it may be of the Napoleonic Era. So on the ship the cannonballs sat, upon the brass monkeys, minding their own business and waiting their turn to be stuffed and fired. And as soon as it got freezing cold, the brass monkey would contract and the cannonballs would go flying, or rather rolling, onto the deck of the ship. Imagine being on deck, late at night, after a few swigs of Irish whisky, only to hear the oncoming rumble...

So what on earth, do you ask, brings me to this topic? Firstly, I adore this saying, for sometimes you can get just the weirdest looks from people when you drop that line. And I was thinking, how can I turn around the tide of overly inquisitive entries a bit? And I have to be honest, tonight I am hammering out the slide kit for my thesis presentation, I have been writing like a banshee at work all week, and I need a bit of goofiness injected into my rhythm.

So with that, I leave you to your own device.

question: who is your monkey?