Words

Words. I love them. I love where they come from, what they mean, how they sound. I especially love words that dance on the tongue. I love juicy words!

Roots! Now that is a good word. From Old English, from Old Norse, the root of root is wryt...yummy huh! Root is a noun and a verb, trees and teeth have roots, families have roots, pigs root, people root around and I bet you didn't know that the lowest tone of a chord (as C in a C minor chord) when the tones are arranged in ascending thirds is a root.

How about "Phosphatidylcholine"? Don't you just love how it plays in your mouth and gets your tongue all juiced up? I don't know why there are no children's poem or riddles with phosphatidylcholine in them. It is every bit as fun to say as Mary, Mary, quite contrary and much more interesting than a Snuffleupagus.


What about Snickerdoodle? It doesn't tickle my toes like Abaculus but it is a jolly word. Abaculus, now that word should never be spelled out in whole letters but should be written with dots, small broken pieces of letters, grout is optional.

Hamulus rhymes with abaculas but sounds better in pig latin: amulushay, but the Hook is when would you use both words in a poem?

Relinquish...anouther good sound but not an action that most of us choose freely, unless its to relinquish a hated chore or paying the bills, I would gladly relinquish my daily dose of phosphatidlycholine and finishing the abaculus with the hamulus but I absolutely will not relinquish my snickerdoodle.

Another word, a word that opens the door..and several windows...on many more juicier words and concepts is epistemology! Can you just feel the goose bumps building up your back?

Epistemology! What makes justified beliefs justified? (here come some excellent words folks....hold on). Deontological justification! Contextualist! Tripartite!

Is it possible that there is deontological justification for daily doses of phosphatidlycholine? Would that constitute deontic logic...well, maybe non-deontic logic, which is much more fun to say anyway!

A word that confuses me is tree! A very inappropriate word for such beautiful beings. The word tree is so tiny and all above the line, no g's or j's, no p's or y's! No roots or wyrt's, and the tallest letter is a t, what about the l's and f's. Tree will just not do....let us make up a new one. Not a word for boot tree or saddle tree or family tree (whew, talk about roots). Well, I'm up a tree on this one...any ideas?

Do I have a favorite word you might ask? Do you have a favorite word? A word you use in everyday conversation? What about "contemporary" or "random" or "serendipitous"? Consequently! Pursuant....eww, thats a little precocious!


Pray tell....share with us your favorite word and why!

Memories of Past Christmases

I just came back from the annual Christmas party of my husband's store. As we all sat around we shared our memories of our best or most memorable Christmas.

So many good stories and even some sad ones, all very memorable. All very touching.

My memories of Christmas as a child, my most significant memories blend together.

It's difficult for me to remember if this incident was the same year as that occurence.

I remember lots of cousins, lots of aunts and uncles, singing, dancing. I remember the Christmas tree at my grandma's and grandpa's house that went all the way up the stair way.

I always wanted a two-story house with a wrap around stairway so that I could have a big giant tree like the ones I remember there....though the other 50 weeks of the year climbing stairs has absolutely no appeal to me.....absolutely none.

There was always lots of love, people laughing, kids running around and around. I remember and still do the wonderful feeling of belonging....belonging to something significant and something bigger that me....I was a part of the whole.

Fog

My dear friend has been so sad of late. She sits in the corner at the office and stares into nothingness. When I ask what is wrong she just moves her head, slowly, from side to side. My heart tells me that her gesture is not telling me that nothing is wrong but she is telling me she just doesn't know.

Then I ask, "Is there anything I can do to help?" and she tells me she wants to lay down and never get up.

I wrap my arms around her and hold her until the next patient walks through the doors.

We go through the day, answering phones, taking blood pressures, guiding this person or that into a room. Two and three days pass and still my friend is only physically in the space, her spirit and soul have journied off....somewhere....but not here, not in this office, not with these patients and files and chores. She remains as passive and spiritless as a human can be.

She calls in the prescriptions to the pharmacists and even some of them, pausing in the routine of it, ask her what is wrong....but they can't see her head move from side to side...and she lets them return to their tasks.

One bleak morning, the fog is thick, the corners dark. Everytime the door opens the chill creeps in; grabs us. We tell our Family Nurse Practitioner that it is a full morning. Lots of patients coming in, lots! We ask her to "kind-of" expedite her visits with her patients. Oh, when will we learn?

it is 10:30, the waiting room is standing room only, and over-flow has gone into the second waiting room at the back of the clinic. Our FNP is only on her 2nd patient. the patients are starting to grumble and the coughing and sneezing is in need of an orchestra conducter with his wand to try to make some sense and order of it.

My friend jumps off her stool! Jumps! She has hardly moved in days but today she jumps. She grumbles! Grumbles! Grumbles about time and taking too long and wraps her knuckles on the door of room 2! "Time!" she calls through the door.

She briskly walks back to my office.

Suddenly, electrically, a switch from far inside her flips and with a wonderful glow in her eyes, a genuine look of surprise on her face she shouts, "I'm back!, I'm back! I don't know where I went but I'm back!"

We both laughed and danced and rejoiced!

I am secretly relieved that, as in the movies, I never had to slap her!