It is a pronoun that can replace any noun and perhaps the occasional gerund. But don’t take my word for it.
Today’s word…loss
I am at a loss for today’s word. Has anyone found a word? Maybe it’s hiding — glossed over (what some folks do to spiffy up the truth, which happens a lot lately). Or in blossoms (those hints of spring we long to see – hang on Punxsutawney Phil and Buckeye Chuck; we’re comin’ for ya!) Maybe it wriggled into c’lossus, like Colossus of Rhodes (reference “rhoda”, word of the day awhile back).
Even if it’s sometimes hard to find the right words to express it, we all have experienced a loss at one time or another. We may have lost a pet or a parent or a friend or an election. Loss is loss, no matter what the specific loss. And it hurts. Even loss of time is painful. We look into the mirror one day, and that child is gone. And loss of self, loss of integrity, loss of principle — all things to grieve, especially in current times.
But, though we mourn our losses, what can we find to fill the void? What is an alternative word? Hope? Resilience? Discovery? Invention? Love?
There is so much that is possible. What’s your word?
Phredd and Me…It all started with trivia…or grandkids…or puppies…or bad drivers…
Right brain/left brain — each, reportedly, has certain delegated functions, the right brain being the creative side and the left, more analytical. But the bottom line is that I have an unusual relationship with my left hand.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I started calling other people Fred — especially if they were in surrounding vehicles, swerving and the like. “Yo, Fred! Your lane is over there!” “Watch it, Fred! You’re gonna be buying a Subaru!” Somehow, when my first grandson was born, he became Fred (not his real name). He actually answered to “Fred” for the first five or six years of his life. “Fred, get down outta that tree!” “Yo, Fred! Time for supper!”
[A bit of a leap here…but my mind does not operate in linear fashion; it spirals and loops, so I am fast-forwarding to a seemingly-not-related-but-absolutely-related part of the story.] For awhile we had my human son and his wife living with us while they were building a house. There were three dogs in the home at the time — Coco and Rocky (female and male boxers) and Bruce (half St. Bernard/half golden lab). Bruce looked a lot like Dreyfus, the dog on an old Richard Mulligan sitcom “Empty Nest” with occasional cameos on “The Golden Girls”. There are Bruce stories to come in the future. However, looping back to the Phredd story, Coco was a bit brazen and managed to mingle with both Rocky and Bruce, hence producing a litter of five puppies — two boxers and three box-nards. We didn’t want to get too attached by giving them names, so I decided we’d call them all Fred as a group. If we summoned “Fred”, they’d all come running. It worked. But….eventually they became Big Big Fred, Little Big Fred, Big Little Fred, Little Little Fred, and Winnifred –individuals, after all.
So…fast-forward once again. My friends who coached the high school Academic Challenge team would take their students to a sports bar that featured NTN Trivia (now Buzztime) to practice a weekly Showdown game as it allowed them to answer questions on a variety of topics as well as to become proficient with speedy responses. Since I would hang out with this rowdy group, I became addicted to trivia. My screen name was based on my own name (not Fred). But…ultimately, when that sports bar closed their doors, we all scattered to other venues for trivia. The closest host for me was in another town as that’s where I was working. Being addicted, it didn’t matter whether anyone went with me or not, and at times I would be the lone trivia player at that location. Part of the joy is competing, not just with the online competitors, but with other patrons of the establishment…..so on quieter nights with nobody else playing, I began to use a second playbox — screen name Phredd. Phredd is my left hand. Phredd actually has his own log-in, avatar, and Players Plus status. Go Phredd!! The weird thing (okay, one of the weird things) is that Phredd seems to know more than I do. I am convinced that he travels via astral projection while I am sleeping and accumulates experiences and knowledge to which I was never exposed. It’s rather amazing, actually. A couple of the guys where we play now have objected to Phredd’s playing and feeling it is somehow unfair. In actuality, it puts me at a disadvantage because neither Phredd nor I always get the same answers right as we often answer differently (although I really should learn to trust Phredd as he seems to get out more). There is a Category round in which competitors vote between two topics, but Phredd often chooses the other topic, so we don’t really even band together to outvote anyone. Phredd is indeed his own person. And besides, I can’t really leave Phredd at home. And it would be impolite of me to play in front of him since he is now addicted, too. It is kind of freaky, though, to be bested at trivia by my own left hand.
Today’s word…congress
Congress — the opposite of progress…
Today’s Word…Mo
Mo’, with an apostrophe, can be short for “more”. It also means a short period of time (I think like a moment). And it is the abbreviation for Missouri, the “show me” state. (My human son used to refer to Missouri as “Misery” because he hated driving through it on the way to the southwest when travelling the motorcycle racing circuit.) And, mo’ importantly, Mo was the name of my third child (the second monkey kid; you can read about him in the blog category on Monkeys, Motorcycles, Mischief, and My Life). Mo was a nickname for Mojam (pronounced moyum), the Hungarian word for monkey. Bet you didn’t know that!!
Mo can be part of Mojo (similar to juju), and your Mojo can be working! You can stretch out mo as in moment and turn it into momentum and really get your Mojo working strong.
And momentum is often a good thing as it propels us ahead toward our goals (although it can be a bad thing if we are trying to avoid, say, a cliff). Momentous is impressive when we really achieve an important goal. Mo comprises half of moto (as in motocross…which my son didn’t care for due to its affinity for mud) and two-thirds of Mom…which is almost always a really good thing.
But it’s late tonight, so no mo’ about mo.
Today’s Word…Geo
Geo — sometimes short for George — for example, Geo (pronounced Joe) Roeder of Grand National motorcycle dirt track racing fame, who carried national number 66 and, along with brother Jess, followed in the footsteps of their also-famous dad, George Roeder, Sr., (national number 94) in his career with “rolling thunder”. Go straight, turn left — but at 100 or so miles per hour on a dirt half mile. (More to come on dirt track racing in the Monkeys, Motorcycles…category on the blog.)
Geo has also been the name of a car model (a small vehicle which probably could not keep up with Geo Roeder’s 750 Harley).
Geo also means “earth” as in geology, study of earth. Animal-vegetable-mineral — everything on the planet is some form of those. Geology deals with rocks (minerals), and rocks can be igneous such as granite (formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava) , sedimentary such as limestone and shale (formed by the deposition of material at the Earth’s surface and within bodies of water), or metamorphic such as marble and quartzite (pre-existing rock mass in which new minerals or textures are formed at higher temperatures and greater pressures than those present on the Earth’s surface). Take a loupe (that little jeweler’s magnifying tool) and examine a rock. Find the pockets of druzy, the veins of minerals, the layers amassed from years of evolution. Fascinating!!
Today’s word…rhoda
Rhoda can mean “rose” or “from Rhodes”. Rhodadendron, not to be confused with Rhoda Morganstern (google it, youngsters!) — a rose short-branched extension of a nerve cell from Rhodes? Rhodachrosite — a pink, red, grey, or brown mineral that consists of manganese carbonate in hexagonal crystalline form and occurs in ore veins. Rhodachrosite is a stone purported to inspire cheerfuness and lift depression. Or perhaps a road in Italy (roada?)
Today’s Word…blog
A blog is defined as a regularly updated web page……Blah blah blah!! The “g” is silent, like in “bologna” . Maybe a blog is baloney. Hmmmmm…..
Today’s Word…Imp
Imp….a little creature that creates mischief wherever it goes. For example…I am impressed at the impassioned implications of the “impartial” impeachment. To impatiently impinge upon important time and importune taxpayer dollars to impose an implacable imprecation of an impervious imperious official seems impractical, imprudent, and not impartial or impartisan (which isn’t a real word but perhaps should be).