Basil Seaweed

Dazzle:   To render incapable of thinking clearly; to overwhelm with showiness or brilliance.

Today at Starbucks - or should I pretend like I'm in The Czech Republic and say Starbucz - I decided, at the last minute, to use the name Basil.   I felt kind of Belgian or Swiss this morning.  I briefly toyed with the much more formal William, in a silent homage to Suburban Bill, but switched to Basel when I was prompted to provide a name.  The difficulty was that I wasn't sure if I should pronounce it BAY-sel or BAH-sel and I was under the gun, the barista looking at me, pen poised above the little sticky thing he was going to affix to the cup, so I kind of chokingly mumbled out a hybrid of the two.

"I'm sorry - Dazzle?" the barista said.  I laughed.

"BAH-sel," I clarified.  "Although I do dazzle from time to time."

He stared at me.

"Not this early in the morning, though," I said.

"OK," he said.

 "Although if I do decide to dazzle you'll know it right away,"  I added.

This is why I usually don't go out into public without SuperK.