cooling your heels

Danielle Steelの 'Five Days in Paris' を読んでいます。
パリに出張中のPeterは会長であり義父のFrankと国際電話で話をしています。
At least Suchard hadn't said it was dead. Peter thought to himself, as he sat up in bed. All he had said was that it had problems. Serious ones to be sure, but there was still hope for his dream child. "Well, enjoy yourself in Paris for a few days. We'll hold the fort for you here. There's nothing dramatic happening at the office. And tonight, I'm taking Katie to dinner at '21'. As long as she doen't mind your cooling your heels there, then I think I can get by without you."
"Thanks. Frank. I'd like to be here to discuss the results with Suchard when he's through."
慣用句らしい表現の "cooling your heels" を調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Be kept waiting.: ‘Well, drivers will have to cool their heels in traffic.’
・Wiktionary: To wait, especially impatiently or restlessly.: I cooled my heels in the cloisters till nine, then went in to the music-meeting.
"cooling your heels" より "kick one's heels" の方が同じ意味でよく使われるようだ。
・Collins Dictionary: If you are kicking your heels, you are having to wait around with nothing to do, so that you get bored or impatient.: The authorities wouldn't grant us permission to fly all the way down to San Francisco, so I had to kick my heels at Tunis Airport.
なるほど、ワクチンが普及してコロナ旋風が治まるまで　"We have to cool our heels." ですね。
ところで、"dinner at '21'" で、昔ニュージャージの会社に勤めていた頃、会社の近くに "Catch 22" というシーフードレストランがあったことを思い出しました。この名前から有名な小説　"Catch-22" を連想させるのはもちろんですが、シーフードレストランのメニューでよく見かける ""Today's Catch" も連想させますね。そして何故 "22" なのかというと、ルート22沿いに店があったからです。とても印象的な店名でした。

wanted the moon

Danielle Steelの 'Five Days in Paris' を読んでいます。
主人公のPeterが付き合っている彼女、Kate、の父親、Frank Donovan、からDonovanの会社で働くよう勧められます。
Like Peter, Frank Donovan was a marketing man, and a great one. He talked to Peter about his career, his life's plan, his future, and liking what he heard, he offered him a job at Wilson-Donovan. He said nothing about Katie. In fact, he insisted the job had nothing to do with her whatssoever.
...
He agonized over it, debated endlessly, and even his father thought it was a good move when Peter called him to discuss it. Peter went home to Wisconsin to talk to him about it over a long weekend. His father wanted the moon for him, and encouraged him to take Donovan's offer.

Peterの父親は "wanted the moon" とは何のことでしょうか？　その仕事を受けることを望んでいるのは間違いないので、この様な表現が英語であるのか辞書を見ましたが、"moon" ではどの辞書にも当てはまるような説明は見当たりません。しかしながら、"cry for the moon" あるいは "ask for the moon" に次の意味があることが分かりました。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Ask for what is unattainable or impossible.: ‘there must be no more self-pity, no more time wasted on crying for the moon’
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: to ask for something that is very difficult or impossible to get: The striking workers say they just want to be paid a fair wage. They're not asking for the moon.
"ask for the moon" で調べていると次の辞書に "want the moon" も使われるとありました。
・Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary: (also want the moon) (British English, informal) want or ask for something you cannot get, or something that will not be given to you: Is it asking for the moon to hope for peace in this country?; I don’t want the moon; I just want him to listen to me for once.

mixer

Danielle Steelの小説2冊目 'Five Days in Paris' を読み始めました。
主人公のPeter Haskellがパリのドゴール空港に着いたところから小説は始まり、その後の主人公の背景を説明する記述から引用します。

Peter didn't want to marry Kate Donovan. He didn't even know who she was when they met, when she was nineteen and he was twenty, at the University of Michigan. At first, she was just a prettey blond sophomore he met at a mixer, but after two date, he was crazy about her.

"mixer" は日本でいう合コンでしょうか？　辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A social gathering where people can make new acquaintances.
‘Tourists visit from all over the world to participate in the week's activities, which include concerts, parades, puppet shows, and social mixers that stir from dusk until dawn.’

・Collins Dictionary: a social gathering, as a dance, for getting people acquainted with one another

・Cambridge English Dictionary: a party or dance that has been organized so that people in a group can get to know each other: The school always holds a mixer on the second week of the term.
"mixer" は合コンでとは限らないが、合コンも "mixer" の一種ですね。

EXCUSES!

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 "Excuses, Excuses, EXCUSES!" から引用します。
When our new hire didn't show up for work, I called her. She explained that her mother had passed away and that she would need a few days off for bereavement. "Of course," I said.
A week went by, and she still hadn't returned to work. So I called again. This time, she had good news and bad. The good news: Her mother had come back to life. The bad news: She was sick again, so she had to stay home with her.
この人は仕事をやる気はありませんね。

sharecropper

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 "Saving Henry's Last Leg" から引用します。
After Dr. Fakorede told Henry's family his plan, his sister, Judy Dotstry, looked over at her brother, who sat slumped over the side of the cot, a blue gown slipping off his bony shoulders.
Their father had been a sharecropper, and Henry had dropped out of elementary school to help on the farm, harvesting soybean, rice, and cotton.

"sharecropper" は農民で自作農ではないので小作人のようですが、辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A tenant farmer who gives a part of each crop as rent.: As southern cotton growers reduced production in return for federal payments, sharecroppers and tenant farmers were driven from the land.

・Collins Dictionary: mainly US, a farmer, esp a tenant farmer, who pays over a proportion of a crop or crops as rent: Hall grew up in a shack with dirt floors, the son of a sharecropper.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: US HISTORY a member of a low social class of farm workers who receive a share of the value of the crop and who must pay the farm owner for seed, tools, food, and a place to live: Sharecropping was a way of life for many former slaves.

cutworm

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 "Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things" から引用します。

REPEL INSECTS: Scatter a border of ashes from your fireplace around your garden to deter cutworms, slugs, and snails--ash sticks to their bodies and draws moisture our of them. Also sprinkle small amounts over garden plants to manage infestations of soft-bodied insects.
"cutworms" は植物の根あるいは葉を食べる害虫の様ですがどんな昆虫でしょうか？

・Oxford English Dictionary: A moth caterpillar that lives in the upper layers of the soil and eats through the stems of young plants at ground level.: The product works as either a preventive or curative control for fire ants, mole crickets, sod webworms, cutworms, armyworms and chinch bugs.
・Collins Dictionary: any of a number of soil-dwelling caterpillars (family Noctuidae) that feed on young plants of cabbage, corn, etc., cutting them off at ground level
今年の２月まで区民農園を借りて野菜を栽培していた経験からすると "cutworms" はヨトウムシを指すようです。

hen-of-the-woods

Reader's Digest 10月号の記事 "A Magic, Wild, Meaty Treat" から引用します。
I continue to be credited with health benefits, some more legit than others. Most of the varieties you eat have an array of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals, including all-important vitamin B and selenium. The maitake mushroom, also called hen-of-the-woods, is remarkably high in vitamin D.
舞茸の事を英語で "hen-of-the-woods" と言うのですね。それにしても日本料理が世界的にブームになったせいか、先日取り上げた "panko" の様に、対応する英語があっても日本語をそのまま使ったりするのですね。
"hen-of-the-woods" と "maitake" の辞典での説明を下に引用します。
・Vocabulary.com: large greyish-brown edible fungus forming a mass of overlapping caps that somewhat resembles a hen at the base of trees
・Wiktionary: An edible polypore mushroom, Grifola frondosa: Synonyms maitake


Wikipedia:(Maitake) Grifola frondosa is a polypore mushroom that grows in clusters at the base of trees, particularly oaks. The mushroom is commonly known among English speakers as hen-of-the-woods, ram's head and sheep's head. It is typically found in late summer to early autumn. In the United States' supplement market, as well as in Asian grocery stores, the mushroom is known by its Japanese name maitake (舞茸, "dancing mushroom"). It is native to China, Europe, and North America.