Category Archives: wordplay

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play

I took this in 2005. My daughter is going after our friend Sam. She is wearing glow in the dark vampire teeth. He is going along with it and playing along. Three of us are playing because they are my glow in the dark vampire teeth. I have a strong connection with that playful inner child part and so I always have some toy in my dopp kit. Glow in the dark vampire teeth. Temporary tattoos. Glue and glitter for temporary tattoo stencils. A friend once looked in my dopp kit and was very surprised. His only contains toothpaste and toothbrush and razor and practical things.

Blessing on Sam and all the adults who play when the time is right….

dopp kit: http://shop.wingtip.com/why-is-it-called-a-dopp-kit

 

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just

Justice is one of the Seven Virtues, from one of two lists. This is one of the four cardinal virtues extolled by Aristotle and Plato. Do you feel just?

Just from dictionary.com

adjective

1. guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness:

We hope to be just in our understanding of such difficult situations.

2. done or made according to principle; equitable; proper:

a just reply.

3. based on right; rightful; lawful:

a just claim.

4. in keeping with truth or fact; true; correct:

a just analysis.

5. given or awarded rightly; deserved, as a sentence, punishment, or reward:

a just penalty.

6. in accordance with standards or requirements; proper or right:

just proportions.
7. (especially in Biblical use) righteous.
It is also an adverb.
This is from the list that does not match to the Seven Sins. Is being just a value for you, a virtue? And if so, which meaning? One person can be talking about the law while another is talking about fairness and they can be taking opposite sides. Would you say that you are a just person? And again, which meaning has the highest value for you?
Blogging from A to Z: the letter J. Last year: J is for Joy.
I took the photograph in 2009 at the National Junior Synchronized Swimming competition. We hope that judging is just and fair and the rules are applied in sports and by the legal system.

 

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fortune

For the Daily Prompt: fortune, an old poem. This is the version I learned, but there are others… I think that I learned this from a nursery rhyme book, that had been my mother’s. A cautionary tale, perhaps….

“Where are you going, my pretty maid?”

“I’m going a-milking, sir,” she said

“May I go with you, my pretty maid?”

“No one will stop you, sir,” she said

“What is your fortune, my pretty maid?”

“My face is my fortune, sir,” she said

“Then I can’t marry you, my pretty maid.”

“Nobody asked you, sir,” she said.

Other versions:


https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Where_are_you_Going_My_Pretty_Maid_(A_Baby%27s_Opera)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Book_of_Nursery_Songs_and_Rhymes/Nursery_Songs/LIII._WHERE_ARE_YOU_GOING_MY_PRETTY_MAID%3F
http://www.bartleby.com/360/2/138.html

I took the photograph a few days ago at sunset. We are almost at the solstice. Blessings all.

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Random confuse the engine search

A friend and I are using Facebook to message this am and she says she hates that Facebook is mining for advertising all the time. I said we should do a random confuse the engine search every day. Something silly! I searched enamel zebra hamsters first…. And it’s fun to watch the internet try!

What silly search would you use to confuse the big data mining on the internet? Go wild! Confuse your feed!

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Z is for zest

Z is for zest. What do you feel zest for?

The photograph is our small town synchronized swim team in 2007 at the Blossom, the last meet of the season that we went to that year. Our girls posed outside where it was very chilly, and all of the exited parents snapped photographs. Zest on both sides for the team and for swimming!

Webster 1913 here
Zest (?), n. F. zeste, probably fr. L. schistos split, cleft, divided, Gr. , from to split, cleave. Cf. Schism.

1. A piece of orange or lemon peel, or the aromatic oil which may be squeezed from such peel, used to give flavor to liquor, etc.

2. Hence, something that gives or enhances a pleasant taste, or the taste itself; an appetizer; also, keen enjoyment; relish; gusto.
Almighty Vanity! to thee they owe Their zest of pleasure, and their balm of woe. Young.
Liberality of disposition and conduct gives the highest zest and relish to social intercourse. Gogan.

3. The woody, thick skin inclosing the kernel of a walnut. Obs.

Z

from Dictionary.com here:

noun
1. keen relish; hearty enjoyment; gusto.
2. an agreeable or piquant flavor imparted to something.
3. anything added to impart flavor, enhance one’s appreciation, etc.
4. piquancy; interest; charm.
5. liveliness or energy; animating spirit.
6. the peel, especially the thin outer peel, of a citrus fruit used for flavoring:
lemon zest.

verb (used with object)
7.to give zest, relish, or piquancy to.

Zest for life, zest for writing, zest for all of the A to Z feelings that I’ve written about in the 7 sins and friends and all of the feelings that I haven’t written about. They are all part of being human! And now: zest for breakfast, I’m hungry!

Hooray for finishing and hooray for everyone who participated whether they finished or not!

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U is for ursine

U is for ursine. Have you ever felt ursine?

Ur”sine (?), a. [L. ursinus, from ursus a bear. See Ursa.]

Of or pertaining to a bear; resembling a bear.

Ursine baboon. Zool. See Chacma. — Ursine dasyure Zool., the Tasmanian devil. — Ursine howler Zool., the araguato. See Illust. under Howler. — Ursine seal. Zool. See Sea bear, and the Note under 1st Seal.

I am thinking of my sister again. My mother called me tiger and her bear. “Chris bear” was one of her names. Have you felt tigerish or ursine? We talk about a temper like a bear or hibernating when we aren’t feeling very social and then there are teddy bears and care bears and last night I saw the new Jungle Book movie.

I know the book well and loved it. I spent much less time with television. The movie is a mix of the book and the Disney version and I am considering the deviations. Sher Khan did not kill the wolf leader in the book, though he did influence some pack members. And the ending is changed and an interesting change at a time when we are afraid of the disconnect that many of us feel from nature. We are afraid that too many people and that sin of greed are destroying species and destroying the world.

And so I do feel ursine. Sometimes it feels unbearable. Sometimes I want to rear up like a grizzly bear and tear down the veneer of civilization. Sometimes I just want to sleep as deeply as a bear and dream…. dream of playing with my sister.

In my photograph, two cars have crashed in the Octoblast and one has been ejected forcibly: that is my sister bending over it…..

 

 

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N is for normal

N is for normal. How often do you feel normal? Are your feelings normal? Are mine?

I kept my books from when I was little and I have some of my mother’s too. Some we wore out. I am thinking of Nobody is Perfick, a book by Bernard Waber. The illustrations are fabulous as are the sentiments from a kid’s point of view. Peter Perfect is held up as a model to all the other children: he is polite, he says thank you, he says please, he doesn’t roll in the glorious mud….. but…. the ending is very satisfying.

Does normal mean average? No one is the perfect average. Does normal mean the cultural norm? Are animals normal? Maybe we are all normal all the time: if a sparrow is normal and a deer is normal and a cat is normal even when she is acting like there is a phantom in the house…. maybe we are all normal too….

N

And since we’re on children’s books, I started playing with N words, inspired by another great children’s author….

Normal is nice, normal is nutty, normal is naughty and nasty and new. Maybe it’s nearly narcissistic to need to know that no one is not normal. It’s nasty to natter that Norman’s not normal. It’s naughty to name a normal nematode Abnormal Norma. Nodes newly known nearly never need normalcy. It’s not nice to knock nude nuts. Knight knapping is not as nice as night napping… nighty night!

Bernard Waber’s website: http://www.bernardwaber.com/

nematodes: http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/nematode/soil_nematode.htm

I took the photograph of my daughter and two friends at an October beach Hawaiian birthday party…Β  the coldest Hawaiian birthday party I’ve been to, so the girls were gathering wood for the fire.

 

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D for Determined

Welcome again to 7 sins and friends, with a different feeling for each letter of the alphabet and that will barely scratch the surface of our rich human diversity….

D for determined.

1. having reached a decision: firmly resolved

2. resolute, staunch

I am determined in the picture. My friend B flew from the east coast for a three day weekend and we were determined to get to the wooden floor in my kitchen. The linoleum was easy, but underneath were squares of particle board, nailed around the edges at two inch intervals. We had two nail pullers, but one was far better than the other. We worked for as long as we could stand each day and by the time he left, we were finished! My back muscles complained for days about that nail pulling motion….

D

My son started violin in fourth grade. A classmate had been playing for longer and was better. He became competitive and determined to catch up with her. “You will have to practice a lot.” I said. He did and they were both concert masters as seniors….

What have you done when you were determined?

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C is for Credulous

C is for credulous. Have you ever felt credulous?

“willing to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence; gullible.”

My young guest in the picture is not quite sure how to interact with the old lady: she is the old lady who swallowed the fly. The fly, the bird, the cat, the dog and even the horse have just been neatly delivered back out of her. My guest is not sure what she will do next. The world is a magical place.

C

Adults get caught up too, but in a darker version of credulous. Something for nothing. A deal too good to be true. A young relative on the phone, caught in another country, asking for help. Email from people saying that we have money from a distant relative who has passed. Calls over and over to my clinic that say they are from my long distance company and that they want to “help” me lock in service before a change…. I asked for a number to call back and was given the number of a sex line. I called my long distance company and they said, “Yes, they just lie.”

I think that fraud is on the upswing in the United States, but perhaps I am just a credulous person who believes that most people would like to earn their living in honest work and doing good for other people and the world.

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Non compos mentis

This is for the Ronovan Writes weekly haiku #51, prompt words future and give. I have been reading Walt Kelley’s Pogo again. One strip yesterday worked it’s way from ptarmagin and ptruly and pteam all the way to a pun involving “non compass Memphis” in just four panels. Talk about away with words! I am studying latin again in my spare time, so I about fell off my chair laughing. Hooray for Mr. Kelly!

future feature give
teacher stretcher lecher live
liver fetcher fugue

I took the photograph last summer camping on Marrowstone Island.

Ha, the joke is on me. That’s the June 2015 challenge. I’m leaving it up……