adj. -- a person fond of prying into matters which concern him nothing
The Scots have such lovely words (and definition!). Many thanks to my doughty pal James Barfoot, from whom I received a calender (out of date) of Forgotten English (not anymore!) today.
So, happy new year, 2009, everyone.
I refuse to take the bait. I refuse to take the bait. I refuse to take the bait.
A long time since we've had a word of the day.
psychodoula (n) -- A trained, experienced, etc., person who guides hopelessly depressed people, PTSD victims, etc., through psilocybin, micro-LSD, etc., to emerge on the other end of the experience as sunny, well-balanced human beings.
Nick made it up this morning. Not kindly (with apologies but maybe that's because the doulas I've met had those kind-of-spinny, blazinng-with-unwholesome-sincerity eyes).
November 1--I don't remember
November 2--
Applied for Medicare
Paid my taxes
Called the tree surgeon
Called the carpenter
Wrote long overdue thank-you note
Sewed masks I'd promised to a friend
Took my winter sweaters out
Watered the plants
Put the air-conditioner away
Cleaned the house
I didn't actually get my financial records in order, update my will, and write a farewell note.
November 3, so far—
Woke up
Ate a clonazepam
All this because… Four years ago, I went to bed at 9, serene as could be, never thinking. I woke up at 2 am, heard the words "president-elect [you know who]" on my soft radio, and experienced nirvana--in that I saw the whole black universe before me and floated for a few supremely serenely, sensationless, pre-linguistic, dissociated moments.
Before feeling both heartbeat and thought telling me, "It has come again." And feeling grateful that my father—who had survived (if you can really call it that) one holocaust—had died before it had.
I still don’t know who won this election. I have not dared to turn on the radio, which has been off fir four years. Today I will spend all day fearing nirvana.
What the hell--I don't want to drop out of circulation again--and pomegranates are a very, very beautiful fruit. As well as being absolutely essentially to Milo's happiness.
I do so love a recipe whose first word is "decapitate."
I received one of these puppies as a present from a friend, who was entranced by, and thought rightly that I would be entranced by, its pulchritude.
I must digress—the word pulchritude, meaning beauty, sounds in fact—as many before me have noted—like something very unpleasant. Lumpy, swollen, fleshy. But I believe that in this squash, the word is not only apt but absolutely designed for vegetables. I mean, look at this beautiful thing. (The image credited to gardennerd.com, as I had not photographed my own before I despoiled it.)
So. It was puchritudinous. And I did admire its pulchritude. (If the word sounds as though it describes a thing unpleasant, it is nonetheless delicious to say.) But I looked it up online and discovered that it is edible as well as decorative. And I have an ingrained horror of wasting food, an ingrained curiosity about things I've never eaten before, and a cleaver.
Now I have, in addition, a squash in the oven, there are remarkably no cuts on my person, and the first joint of my right index finger is looking pretty buff. Burns and cuts are all very well, but if you want to see if someone cooks a lot (or maybe if you want to see someone who chops a lot of turban squash) check out the knife callus on that finger.
Still waiting for results. However. In future, I will regard this vegetable as decorative, and will throw my next one out guilt-free when it's time to change to winter decor. A hatchet would have been a better tool than a cleaver, so remarkably tough was it. And along with the descriptions of its delicate (i.e., negligible?), buttery (refers to color?) taste, the word "chalky" showed up in one of the descriptions (Too late. I read that one after.)
Post Mortem. It was delicious.
