Grandeoise

Grandiose = an amazing word, and this day.

I had a couple hours to kill in Westlake, so I met up with Rebekah and Rachel (yes, sisters) for lunch at this little French cafe eloquently named "Champagne". It was a bit pricey, as I had been previously warned, but it was definitely worth it. The outside veranda style seating, inside wooden paneling, chalkboard menu, glass display case, and mellow lighting made for a genuinely French feel and theme. I didn't really know what to order, but I saw something up under the "Specialities: Flatbread" section with the word 'bacon'. Bingo. Bacon with squash, zuchinni, and goat cheese, to be exact. It was very different, but very good. That, accompanied with a small but very satisfying cafe latte, made for a extremely good and memorable lunch. I'll have to go back there sometime.

When we finished, I still had some half an hour to kill, so I walked into Barnes & Noble. It's much better than Borders - such a shame that there aren't more of them around here. I found a book called "In The Land of Invented Languages" - read the first chapter, loved it, so I bought it. Yay for graduation cards. It's basically about made-up languages; everything from Esperanto to Klingon (the geeky Star Trek language). The author opens with a description of Klingon and follows that theme throughout the book. Not only is the subject matter interesting, the author's writing style is really entertaining and open. While his thesis is that no invented language has ever been widely spoken, he still discusses in detail each of the languages - the origin, the development, the users, the grammar. It's interesting to see that intentionally created languages never have really prospered or grown - real language is far from intentional. One of the opening paragraphs says, "Although we like to call language mankind's greatest invention, it wasn't invented at all. The languages we speak were not created according to any plan or design. Who invented French? Who invented Portuguese? No one. They just happened. They arose. Someone said something a certain way, someone else picked up on it, and someone else embellished. A tendency turned into a habit, and somewhere along the way a system came to be." I'm definitely looking forward to reading through the rest of the book! I'll share any more exciting discoveries I come across.