Tag: Words

Midday Moon

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt: GALAVANT — or GALLIVANT (UK)

Something none of us have done very much of for awhile. But the moon, on the other hand, wanders willy-nilly at times.

Midday Moon

Moon, moon, what dost thou here?
You're supposed to be away
over there on the other side
shining down on Japan
or India or even Turkey.
It's mid-afternoon and here –
not there – you are!

Not staying on your given track
what's prompted you to gallivant
around the globe
in broad daylight?
Folks around there will miss
your whiteness, your brightness.

Worse, I suppose now
you won't show up
for our date tonight.
Totally off course –
maybe in Timbuktu –
when we need you.
Obdurate orb, don't be so dim!
Get with the program, eh.

The Pro

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

Ragtag Daily Prompt: PROCRASTINATE
M-W’s Word of the Day: IDIOPATHIC
Fandango’s One-Word Challenge: ADROIT

We have some really interesting prompt words today! Yes, that P word. One of my worst flaws. That little moth that eats holes in the fabric of our lives.

Procrastination stems from a misjudgement or mismanagement of time, I suppose. A person entertains the perception that there will be more time later to do a thorough job. You use up precious minutes doing insignificant things, but then one day you wake up and realize you missed the opportune boat. It’s sailed and you weren’t on it — and there may never be one with “more time” leaving from this dock.

Idiopathic, according to Merriam-Webster, means “arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause.” Like when you have every good intention to get at something as soon as you have a bit more time, but delays arise from an obscure source, and while you’re coping with them, someone pushes the hands of the clock ahead. Sometimes years ahead.

Idiopathic also means “peculiar to the individual.” I don’t think procrastination is peculiar to me, though I’m quite adroit at procrastinating under normal circumstances. And later chiding myself because of the thing not yet done.

And this past week hasn’t been a normal one for me, as I’ve been feeling “under the weather.” Sinus and bronchial congestion, limp-noodle energy, napping often. Procrastinating in regard to posting on my blog, too, you may have noticed. I believe I’m on the road to recovery now, but it’s been a long spell of the blahs.

Weaver of Words, Spinner of Tales

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 9 Comments

Today I’ll combine my response to the Ragtag Daily Prompt word, SNITCH

Image: Mohamed Hassan — Pixabay

with The Sunday Whirl — Wordle #484

Object: Use as many words as you can in a story or verse
STORY SPINNER
 
A master at crafting,
 your stories build walls;
 raise up humble dwellings
 and palaces tall.

 I look out the windows
 you've set in your halls – 
 some frames bold and black,
 some narrow, some small.

 I spy this new country
 you've chosen to scrawl,
 this world to discover
 with scenes to enthrall.

 You've thrown up some cities
 and peopled them all,
 each soul with their trial
 and frequent downfall.

 You snitch someone's sweetheart
 misled by some knave;
 throw gallants to lions
 to prove themselves brave.

 I'll read half the night
 drawn into your spin.
 But, wasted next morning,
 I just want to sleep in!

Amber –A Journey

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 8 Comments

Our Ragtag Daily Prompt word today is AMBER

Amber is a hard yellowish to brownish translucent fossil resin that takes a fine polish and is used chiefly in making ornamental things like beads.

This word has taken quite a long journey to get to us English speaking folks. It comes from the Arabic anbar ambergris, an organic waxy resin sea-going people found floating in, or on the shores of, tropical waters. The Arabs traded it to the Romans, who called the stuff ambra. Roman traders brought the word and the resin to Gaul; from there it was introduced to English by the Normans. In time amber came to be the colour as well as the resin.

And amber can be something delicious…

SLURP!

Image: Skitterphoto at Pixabay

Word Prompts Whirl

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

Good morning everyone!

I woke up and looked at the clock, which read 7:01. After a moment’s pondering, I rolled out of bed, got to my feet, and enjoyed a moment of gratitude because I CAN get up and stand on my feet. I CAN move around. When you’ve worked in a nursing home as I have, and seen people who lie in bed for months and even years, you do appreciate the ability to move around.

I recall a time when I was twenty-something. I’d just woken up and was pondering rather ungratefully how life wasn’t going well for us. My husband had to give up his job as a grain buyer because of allergies; at that time he was taking odd jobs with farmers to keep us afloat. We could hardly pay bills; we were living upstairs in his parents’ home. No, our life just didn’t look very rosy at that moment with us being so broke. Then I got out of bed and looked out the window, across the houses and tree tops of Moose Jaw, and the thought came to me, “You have something wonderful. You can see.”

Remember that old poem about the person who was feeling envious until she met a lad who was blind. The last line being, “Oh, Lord, forgive me when I whine. I have two eyes; the world is mine.” Not that my gratitude should be based on what others don’t have and can’t do, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to count your physical blessings. Mr Google tells me you can read the poem here.

Anyway, I headed for the kitchen for my morning coffee, my thoughts still flitting around my experiences in the nursing home. Breakfast: I can do it. I can fix myself, and enjoy, cereal, toast an egg. I recall how we’d feed those folks mush because they couldn’t swallow anything solid. Thank you, God for the ability to move, to swallow, to see – even if the season’s changing in a way I don’t appreciate.

Ragtag Daily Prompt: FRUSTRATION. Not at all this morning, thankfully. As I was saying, I’m feeling grateful rather than frustrated at all at the start of this new day – except maybe by the fact that the week has flown by so fast. Being retired, I can’t say like many others are morning, “Thank God it’s Friday!” But I will say a special thanks to you bloggers who supply us with new writing prompts every day. 🙂

Your Daily Word Prompt: PERFIDIOUS. Ah! This weather. This morning I opened the front door, looked out and took note of my coleus plant in a pot on the deck. Yesterday when I watered it, this plant had lush green leaves, swirled with appealing red tones as coleus are. This morning it’s limp and solid purple. Yesterday when the sun was shining brightly and the evening was fairly mild, I didn’t even think about frost. I have been taking in some nights so it wouldn’t freeze, but wasn’t thinking of frost last night. “Haha,” said the perfidious temperature as it dipped down and dealt my coleus a death blow.

Fandango’s One-Word Challenge: RECONCILE. Yes, I need to reconcile myself to the idea that autumn is here. The leaves are going to fall – in fact the maples have shed a lot already – and my plants are going to freeze. I need to get outside and do some fall clean-up before the snow flies. And the snow will fly, though it’s been so dry we may not get a lot. Back in 1976 we had a really dry fall here on the prairie and got no snow to speak of until February.

Word of the Day: AGASTOPIA. I saw this and wondered, what on earth is that? Neither Lexico nor Merriam-Webster can help me out. According to the prompter, this word means “The visual enjoyment of the appearance of a specific physical aspect of another person.” It can have a sensual context.

When we lived in Montréal I had this friend, a delightful person, with a real weakness for colours and textures. Today we’d call her “bipolar”; back then it was “manic-depressive”; at any rate, she was apt to react more strongly than most of us to visual or textural stimulus. Walking through a mall with her one day I had to be patient, as she’d see some fabric that excited her and she’d have to stop and handle it. A fur vest – she just had to rub it.

She told this story on herself: she was riding home on the subway one day when a man sat in front of her. Well, he had the thickest, darkest, most appealing mop of hair. She was fascinated and tried to restrain herself, but finally she couldn’t anymore. She reached out and buried her fingers in it as she exclaimed, “You have beautiful hair!” I gather he was surprised, but thankfully more flattered than alarmed. He just said – perhaps with a bit of uncertainty, “Thank you.” But she was such a cheery, likeable person that he didn’t take offense.

Lastly, Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day this morning is DELVE. I’ve been delving into Bible prophecy – the different ideas that have been embraced by Christians – and plan to post an article on premillennialism and dispensationalism later today. What huge words, eh? The first word means “before the thousand years” and the second refers to ages or eras.

I want to say a hearty thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to read this ramble of mine. But now it’s 10:30 and I’ve journalled enough. I’d better get on with some real work of the day. I hope you all have a great weakened weekend. (English is so much fun! )

Verbalizing English

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 16 Comments

As often happens, an article on another blog has fired my mental cylinders and — coupled together with some peeves I’ve already petted — has generated enough sparks to inspire a story.

The culpritical article in this case, is Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of List of Words You Love to Hate. All your favorite pet peeves in one location.

This has touched a nerve. My past musings, after seeing the word HEROIZE in an article, were about how some writers have such a love of making nouns into verbs, and/or mangling both. Heroize is actually an old word that’s never caught on well, but M-W’s article has given me a few new words to grind my teeth on: CONVERSATE, COMMENTATE, and INCENTIVIZE. Shriek!

Biff has done another Whatnot Wednesday prompt post again; since this post definitely fits in the “Whatnot” class, I’ll give him a nod for that inspiration.
The Ragtag Daily Prompt word for today is ZEPHYR. I think I can work a few of those into my tale.

A Page from Mrs Ditz’s Longsuffering Diary…

My car was running rough, so at 10 am I took it to the mechanic to see if he could figure out what was wrong. And since I didn’t want to loiter at the shop while he was mechanizing it, I decided to go for a walk. The morning was warm and sunny with zephyrs swirling around, I felt inspirated to meanderate through the park and enjoy the flowers.

I wonder if my daughter is finding the prom dress fabric she’s looking for. I left her at the mall where she planned to materialize at Fabric Haven. This girl is definitely an accomplished seamstress. You should have seen the gorgeous fitted blazer she seamed for herself last month. A perfect fit!

I’d thought of going back to the mall myself and grabbing a coffee in the food court, but you know how it is when everybody’s cacophoning on their cells. You can’t hear yourself think! So I’ll just stroll along and appreciate these morning breezes zephyrating the flowers and shrubs. I just encounted a nice old lady taking her young grandson for a walk and she commentated, too, on the lovely weather.

This morning my son is engaged in an important work. He’s together with several other scientists who want to scientize a report on our local environment. They’ve got a lot of data to analyze and categorize, then they’ll compilate their findings and present their report to some committee that wants to improvate air quality in our city.

I hope it doesn’t take that fellow long to mechanize my car. My dog’s having pups and the vet tells me Drowsy could be litterating any moment now. Drowsy’s a purebred English Terrier and I was hoping to sell the pups, but I suspicion that the mongrel down the street may have illegitimatized this batch.

I think I’d best rotate and head back in the direction of the garage. I don’t want to incentivize him to bill me for any more time than what’s strictly necessary.