Am' bye le tor i adj., n, pl. -ries. --adj 1. pertaining to or capable of walking. 2. adapted for walking, as in the limbs of many animals. 3. moving about; not stationary. 4. Med. not confined to bed: ambulatory patient. 5. Law. not fixed; alterable or revocable: ambulatory will. --n. 6. Archit. a place for walking: a. the side aisle suurounding the choir or chancel of a church. b. the arcaded walk around a cloister.
Which may mean only that I love my father's old American College Dictionary from 1956 (beat that, you stupid definition websites, who seem to think that ambulatory only means "able to walk" --of course it's simple for your immediate needs, but who can beat the feeling of that thin, fragile paper as it slips between your fingers, and those delicious indentations as your fingers search the alphabet!), and it does indeed have fun illustrations (one of these days I'll scan in the illustration I just passed, the alpaca, which seems more relevant to my life than it used to), but if you're getting the hang of this, you'll guess there's another reason for the definition. You are so smart, my dear. But first, I must still praise the multitudes of definitions provided by my dear dictionary. Can't you imagine? The silent monks thoughtfully contemplating their way around the ambulatory? And I'm afraid I will not be able to go through tomorrow without thinking, "where there's an ambulatory will, there's a way." This is sort of a bad joke, as you will see.
Anyhoo, I've currently just started my ambulatory rotation (A-HA), meaning I drive an hour south every day to ride with many vets to go see many cows, horses, sheep, goats and alpacas (and mules and so forth). And we do some ambulating, but mostly we drive. It has been refreshing to see the back pockets of CT looking so lovely (though I have NO idea what the point of having a small model light house in your yard is, or why this is a common lawn ornament here--do you worry about driving your lawnmower into the rocks while you cut your grass in those stormy CT waters?). And really, this ambulatory thing was only a big lead in to the fact that I am in the car a lot and one of the vets listens to a little talk radio now and again (for me, an awful lot like the mysterious light house lawn ornament question, but hey, at least in this case I know the person in question has a pretty good sense of the ridiculous during these times) and I got to thinking about how the country, and maybe even the world is a lot like vet school social life.
Let me explain. You see, in vet school you are sitting in a classroom with about 80 other people. Not once in a while, but all day. Every day. And when you go home, well, most of the time you can't go run about with your non-vet school friends who might give you some refreshing sense of reality. So it gets pretty incestuously small town gossip around there. As in, the person who you aren't mad at but thought perhaps you needed to discuss something with is pretty sure you're mad five minutes before you mention to another completely different person that you need to talk to the original someone. It's not just the smallness of the fishbowl, it's the twisting of the intent. And hey, unfortunately, people have a little nasty side that loves to speculate and talk. And lately I think that TV news and talk radio are simply big, bored vet students, who are sitting next to you in class, or on your couch, and saying "hey, didja hear about so and so? I hear she/he..." I listened to one radio jock decide that, on pure speculation, that there must be another man involved in some romance scandal. And then everyone who called in was equally convinced. Quite astonishing, in a crap-I-can't believe-the-power-of suggestion-really-works way. But man, are we nosey creatures in this country. And any silence is simply something hidden that we're pretty sure we know about. And you people think your teenage girls are bad, the way they talk about boys!
Slippery words, how we twist you and claim ignorance. And that dictionary seemed so innocent about 20 minutes ago...
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