Greatful vs Grateful & Terrific Tools: Toto Toilet

Ink & Kremer watercolors (larger)

I’m probably going to regret this post tomorrow so I apologize in advance if you find the image unsavory. It’s just that I was so tired tonight all I wanted to do was curl up with a good book and a big bowl of popcorn. To avoid the carb overload and squeeze in a little fun after a long work day, I tried to inspire myself to draw a bit. Looking for a subject, I wandered through the house and saw my shiny, excellent Toto toilet.

I highly value competence, good design, and well-made tools (from cars to combs, to clocks to computers–anything that helps manage my daily life I consider a tool). My Toto toilet is a terrific tool. It never has the problems my other WC does (which requires keeping a plunger nearby it at all times).

Here are some other tools I use and appreciate regularly for their great design and functionality: Soltek easel, iPhone, Toyota RAV 4, electric teakettle, Canon MP610 Scanner/Printer, TiVo, Canon Power Shot SD800IS camera, Photoshop, caller ID, Cheap Joes Golden Fleece brushes for watercolor and Robert Simmons Signet brushes for oil, ancient Eagle Creek backpack, my slippers, my bed…

Just writing this list makes me realize how lucky I am and how much I have to be grateful for, and this is just in the tools department, not the really important stuff of life, like friends, family and health.

That’s the great thing about drawing. I start out grumpy and tired and end up feeling grateful. So maybe I won’t regret this post after all.

One last thing: why is grateful spelled “grate” and not “great?” Grate is what you do with cheese or carrots. Great means good. Full of great makes more sense than full of grate.

OK, I had to look it up on Dictionary.com, another wonderful tool:

• Grate in grateful comes from the Latin, grātus, which means pleasing.
• Grate (framework of metal bars) comes from L crāt- (s. of crātis) which means wickerwork, hurdle or crate.
• Grate (as in grating cheese or grating on your nerves) originally comes from German, kratzen to scratch.
• GREAT comes from Groat, which was a silver coin of England, equal to four pennies, issued from 1279 to 1662 and which was larger than other coins in former use.

Oh the poor English learners! What a complex melting pot the English language is!