September 23, 2021

February 23, 2021

Location: Zoom Meeting Room

Present: Paula, Susan, Nina and Ari

Paula showed up all Zoom-savvy with a virtual background from her own photo. 👍 We began today’s chat with catching up on where we each are with the Covid-19 vaccine. By the end of March, we will all have had the two shots and talked of meeting in person in May! Susan wore what she calls her “Pandemic Sweater,” a crazy, hand-knit sampler she started last March. The finishing of the sweater should mark the end of the pandemic, no? As Nina’s cat, Calypso, passed by her screen, we switched to talking of our pets. Nina showed off her adorable new puppy, Ari (Aristotle). With her older dog, the cat, and the puppy, Nina is on an art “paws,” (pun thanks to Paula), but Nina will resume or reZoom art classes again soon. As for reading, Susan has picked up Miller’s Circe again to finish it this time. Paula raved about Stuart’s The Moonspinners set in Crete, and Nina described the complicated and confusing Zorba that she is tackling as part of the Brown University Classicists’ Book Club. She said that it helps that there is a clear thread of the plot of the film Zorba the Greek in this novel. Susan shared Latin Moments she collected while viewing the January, 2021, Impeachment Trial: ex post facto, i.e., and m.o. and President Biden’s February, 2021, Town Hall in Wisconsin. The two Latin phrases (not counting “et cetera”) that Biden used are:

“The vast majority of the economists, and there’s studies that show that by increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour it could have an impact on a number of businesses but it would be de minimis, et cetera.” (28:47)

“Look, I’ve only been president four weeks and sometimes because things are moving so fast, not because of burden, it feels like four years. It’s not because of the burden. It’s because there’s so much happening that you’re constantly focusing on one problem or opportunity ad seriatim.” (01:03:51)

January 18, 2021

Location: Zoom Meeting Room

Present: Ginger, Susan, Paula, and Nina

Meeting just 12 days after the January 6 violent, insurrectionist attack on our nation’s Capitol, Nina began our Zoom with a reading of the Vergilian simile in Aeneid Book I which compares the wild seas calmed by Neptune with a seditious mob being calmed by a man of pietas. How apropos, except for the lack of such a man in Washington, DC, at the needed time. Susan had shared with the group in a January 14 email an article about chronograms: https://llewelynmorgan.com/2021/01/13/pleasaunce/. Paula delighted us today with her own chronogram! A chronogram is a unique kind of Latin inscription on a building. Letters that are capitalized in the phrase represent Roman numerals which, when rearranged correctly, express the year of construction of the building. Paula’s chronogram is Maneant paX et LuX hIC In Mea VIlla. We believe that it has not yet been inscribed in stone above her door. We also shared cartoons, food tips, health tips, and a desire for a return to direct human contact after social distancing now for almost a year during the Covid-19 pandemic.