Day 653: To the 9’s.

“To the nines” is an English idiom meaning “to perfection” or “to the highest degree”. In modern English usage, the phrase most commonly appears as “dressed to the nines” or “dressed up to the nines”.

— Wikipedia entry for “To the nines”

Now, to the nine explanations for why I am writing a post about 9 today:

• I like the idea of using the number “9” instead of the number “10” for perfection (as described in the saying “to the nines”). That gives the 99% of us imperfect humans some space to make mistakes and learn, doesn’t it?
• I want to finish this post approximately 9 minutes earlier than usual, because I have to be at the hospital for work before 9 AM, because I’m on call for emergencies this morning from 9 to 10.
• I’m hoping that writing this post reminds me about being on call for 9 o’clock, since 99% of the time I am NOT on call on Wednesdays (I’m usually on call on Monday afternoons).
• At 10, I have 9 people signed up for a therapy group, and I rate that as a 9 out of a possible perfect 10.
• On my walk home from work yesterday, I heard a song that has a “9” in the title. Would you like to take 9 seconds and/or 9 guesses for what song that might have been?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• After hitting the “return” key 9 times (and giving you enough friggin’ space, I hope), I shall now show you the song that was playing, yesterday, when I left the hospital after a 9-hour workday starting at 9 AM:

•  “99″ (found here on YouTube) is a tune by Toto which I’ve loved — and have loved to sing along to —  for between 9 and 99 years. My boyfriend Michael and I have had approximately 99 discussions about our disagreements about that band and that song. (Michael 99.9%* dislikes both of them.)
• About 9 minutes after I heard “99” yesterday, I heard a magnificent piece by a famous composer.  Feel free to take 9 seconds and/or 9 guesses to come up with an answer for what that second 9-related musical piece was. ((Hint: this composer said a word that sounds like the topic of this post when setting limits with people and turning things down).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• When my son Aaron was about 9 years old, we watched and listened to that exact YouTube video of the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 9th symphony. I remember that being perfectly thrilling (and second to none).

Before I leave, I need a photo with some 9’s in it. I took this, yesterday, as I was listening to Beethoven’s 9th:

I wonder how many comments I’ll get on this post today?  (Does it matter to me how many comments I get?  What do you think?)

99,999 thanks to Aaron,Michael,  Ludwig Van, David Paitch, Jeff Porcaro, Steve Lukather, Steve Porcaro, Bobby Kimball,  David Hungate** AND — of course! — to you, for bringing all your perfect and imperfect numbers here, today.

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* I originally estimated the percentage of Michael’s dislike of “99” and Toto at 99%. Because truthfulness is more than 99% important to me, I checked out the 99% with him before publishing this post at 7:19, and Michael actually suggested I add the additional .9!  99 additional thanks to Michael for adding more 9’s to this post.

** The last 6  (an upside-down 9) in that list of 9 names are original members of the band Toto, which means, in Latin, “all-encompassing.”

*** You didn’t really expect me to have 9 footnotes here, did you? (Although I did go through the trouble to put in 9 links, people!)