7-letter word for........

ok, so our entire family played scrabble last evening after dinner.....everybody including grandma and andrew down from lex........there was the usual machinations between siblings about who was ahead.....and the eldest at one point was surprised that his dad was so close to his top score.....as if his intellect sprang up independently!!!!!......andrew was to go out with a flourish, and a win by just one point...as for me.....i drew mostly vowels and my picks didn't get much better after that....i wasn't last in the scoring......but i was no where near winning points.......an idyllic evening.....

the resurrection dance......

ok, so i have a secret dance of joy that is performed ever so briefly....when i find that roses that were moved and dropped all of their leaves have sprouted new leaves......3 of the 3 roses that were feared dead have resurrected with new growth.......and the hostas that i moved are also showing signs of sprouting new fronds......and the buddlaia bush that i moved has some new growth...not on all its many branches but on enough for me to declare it living rather than lost......now, all that i need to complete the circle of rebirth is for the japanese maple behind the pond to sprout a leaf or two......just to give me hope that it too will be resurrected......and the dance of joy on that day may be too loud and raucous to be secret for long........

martha gellhorn

ok, so...salon.com has a nice piece about the recently edited book of martha gellhorn's letters.....for those who don't recognize the name instantly, martha gellhorn was the the woman for which ernest hemingway dumped his 2nd wife pauline...she had come to france in the early thirties as a newspaper correspondent....first having an extended affair with a relative of one of colette's ex-husbands.......and having liasons with scores of well-knowns over the years.....the list included rockefellers, generals......and the like.......these are some of my favorite quotes from the article.....written in 1972....."I started living outside the sexual conventions long before anyone did such dangerous stuff and I may say hell broke loose and everyone thought unbridled sexual passion was the excuse. Whereas I didn't like sex at all ... all my life idiotically, I thought sex seemed to matter so desperately to the man who wanted it that to withhold was like withholding bread, an act of selfishness ... what has always really absorbed me in life is what is happening outside. I accompanied men and was accompanied in action, in the extrovert part of life; I plunged into that; that was something altogether to be shared. But not sex; that seemed to be their delight and all I got was a pleasure of being wanted, I suppose, and the sort of tenderness (not nearly enough) that a man gives when he is satisfied. I daresay I was the worst bed partner in five continents."

After her inevitable breakup with her second husband, Gellhorn remained in London, which was to be her home until her death in 1998, though she also spent time at her houses in Kenya and Wales. Late middle age was tough on her, as she watched her looks and energy fade at just the time her professional star dimmed. "I have always looked forward to my old age," she wrote in 1960, "being more and more convinced that it would be far funnier than this neither fish-nor-fowl period of middle age, which I am bound to admit bores me."

The one quality she did not lose was her anger, which only seemed to increase as she got older, allowing her to become the sort of feisty grand dame who always seems to be surrounded by a coterie of younger artists and intellectuals. "I never for a moment feared Communism in the U.S. but have always feared Fascism; it's a real American trait," she wrote after observing Barry Goldwater in 1964. She was particularly incensed by the Vietnam War. "I cannot endure this hideous wicked stupidity; to be at once cruel and a failure is too much," she wrote about Lyndon Johnson. "Our President is a disaster and will get worse; never trust a Texan farther than you can throw a rhino.".........for clarification, i am certain she meant political texans........not all texans......

trifecta......

ok, so....so in the past 8 hours i have ventured into 3 farflung goodwills.....frankfort, leestown rd, and new circle.......i have been to frankfort and new circle only once before....and never to leestown...the jewel of them all if one likes to buy secondhand books........there is a secondhand bookstore next door.....probably buys all of its stock at the goodwill and i should really have gone over there...but we were hungry....and i digress about leestown.....i arrived at the checkout minus most of the the books i had selected......hard to tell amongst the stacks of titles chosen by my closest kin......and i marched over accusing my own children of discarding my books as chaffe.....and finally a bystanding woman admitted that she had thought that our cart was fair game and she returned one of the missing volumes.....the others....who knows who grabbed them out of my cart.......i suppose that when a family of bibliophiles shops a store with 8 racks of books....and the cart starts to pile up...it might look like just another jumble pile for the taking........except that now i am home and wishing i had my book about living in paris......just in case i shuld ever win the lottery......frankfort was really good for someone wanting to dress more.......formally?.....at college.....with great buys in ties and tweed jackets......and new circle....curiously another good tweed jacket find...this one in an alternative color scheme............but by the time we were at new circle i was exhausted...and wishing that i had chosen more wisely at kashmir.........i do not eat spicy fare often enough to grow accustomed.........though i do believe that i could eat more than my share of spinach nam.......ah well....three goodwills in one day is no record.......but i consider the day well worth my time because i was with my beloveds.....and these snatches of time are priceless.......

the daily show.....

ok, so the dark humor on the daily show reached a peak with jon stewart's conversation with his new 'Middle Eastern correspondent', Aasif Mandvi....look it up on youtube........it was quite cutting on condi's assertion that the war in the middle east is ripe with opportunities and birth pangs........

wet......

ok, so my thursday county, like my every-other-day county has one of those early warning radios that starts in beeping like crazy before it spits out the bad news......today the lightening had just struck close enough to the building to cause one of the nurses to scream out loud...and then started in laughing because an electronic toy in her 'toy basket for clients' had started to talk....must have been the electrical surge... and then the beeping started in....with a listing of counties in the storm's path......and the list did not include the county where the lightening had just hit.....go figure.......the rain was coming down so fast and furious....and the wind so bold that swirls were vaguely visible as i looked onto the parking lot and realized that each of my car windows was down 1-inch for ventilation........and my heart sank.......i didn't rush to close them because i only cared to get wet once....when it was time to go home.......and so i drove back to danville soaked to the bone......with the heater running full out and the seats sopping from what rain had a direct hit on the window gaps......oy!......by the time i reached the boyle line the torrent had downgraded to a drizzle......and i went on to the aldi's like nothing was the matter......

ok, so words cannot caption such a sight.........only to remind us that this is only in America........ 

sending songs into the abyss......

ok, so i enjoy sending songs...in compressed-file form....into cyberspace to folks that i imagine to be fans of the genre in question...or of the cover....or of the scream-out-loud sound......so far nobody has gotten in my face demanding to know what i mean about all those songs.......so it must be ok........just be sure to check under all of your non-edu email accounts.....just in case my madness has struck again......

blocked.....

ok, so for 2 days i have worked tirelessly to get a website unblocked.......as previously noted, the state of ky has set it's web filters to stun, and the sites that are blocked now include those that have actual merit to my work......the site in question.....www.nancyclarkrd.com...happened to be the site of the nation's premier sports nutritionist....a reasonable place to search for information timely for the beginning of football and cross country seasons......at first i thought the blocking of such a site must be a mistake......and quickly emailed the state web-minders for a quick unblock.....but it is not to be that simple.......my request for an un-block must come from my boss......who is never around.......while this sort of superior is desirable in every other respect, when one needs things from such a boss it is impossible to track him down, and then to sum up one's needs in the 2 minutes that is his attention span.......oy!.......my forwarding of the web-minders email went unanswered, and when i happened to run into him in the hall.....i pitched my need of his personal plea on his own email stationary....and then waited.......til i got off at 6:00 pm....nothing.....and so today i will continue to seek him out and remind him to do this simple thing.....because it is now my duty to unblock such a useful site.......if it is blocked for me it is also blocked for the entire state system........the last time i had a problem with a blocked site.......a page on thre American Diabetes Association site dealing with medication.....it was quickly unblocked, though i was never able to figure out what single word on the page triggered the filter......thank heavens my scope of practice doesn't include a need to see reference photos of veneral infections on private parts.....by the time the unblock came down from above the poor patient would have died from the disease.........this blocking business appears to work randomly at times.......i can easily read the nytimes at lunch, but i cannot read cnn news......nor abc news.......go figure..........i am not in fear that my limited web browsing will come back to haunt me...there was a legal case recently in which an employee had been fired for browsing during work hours....and the case was won by the fired employee under the grounds that the employer did not fire coworkers who made personal phone calls on company time, and that web browsing is considered to be a similar use of time........my workplace is a symphony of the ringing of personal cell phones.........and since mine rarely rings......i think i am covered.......

beer in the krogers......

ok, so i don't get out much, but in the past few days i have shopped in out-of-drycounty groceries, and each time i stood in amazement that beer was for sale.....chilled and unchilled....wow....who knew?

the shining path......

ok, so a workmate of mine recently returned from her mother-in-law's funeral in bolivia.....with unique stories to tell...like the one about how a direct flight from the states couldn't be arranged, so the sister-in-law arranged a flight to peru, with a taxi ride to the bolivian border......'my boss does this all the time', she told my friend......it was not until they were actually in the taxi, and driving into the night on an unmarked road that her spouse mentioned that the boss always had bodyguards with him when he made this trip, and that the shining path rebels regularly target that route for potential kidnap/ransom victims.......and that the trip was just a few minutes to the border,, but several hours........the driver finally let them off at the broder bridge, where another driver picked them up and took them to the house to change....they made it to the funeral with only an hour to spare.......while there are those in my midst who were not impressed bu this tale, i have to admit that i have never been in fear of captivity while on the road and have to give kudos to my friend for handling it so well........

ok, so this photo says it all....... 

reality avoidance.....

ok, so i glanced ever-so-briefly at a headline yesterday on-line....just long enough to discern that flyd's b-sample came back negative......and i couldn't bring myself to read another word.......this entire business has brought me to an unexplainable mourning........i honestly do not know if i will again take as much interest in the three-week bike race........fearing yet another let-down.......and while i prefer to believe that floyd is as innocent as he claims.......the loss of the tour title is a blow to more than the official record book.......

the secret goodwill

ok, so we left my brother-in-law's house on the hill early enough to hit what i fondly refer to as thr secret goodwill.....the big one on route 25e on the left....somewhere between i-75/corbin and the cumberland gap tunnel.....but alas, the goodwill we saw first.....was not the one i had in mind.......several found a few items....but it was not the goodwill i had in mind.....and so i kept an eye out for the remaining stretch of rte 25 for the correct goodwill.....and i never saw it......yes, we stopped scross the street from the corbin goodwill when my spouse generously stopped at an automate place to change out my mom's windshield wipers (we borrowed her van)......but we did not stop at the crobin goodwill because it was nearly 6 (closing time) and because the eldest was anxious to get on home to lexington......and so the secret goodwill remains a secret.....until the next time we travel rte 25 to tenneesee.......

Idyllic......

ok, so.......we are just returned from a charmed long weekend in tennessee.....and north carolina......let us start with our accommodations.......which looked like the country living film crew just left......called creekside cabin...its theme was a melange of bears, troutfishing and moose.....2 porches with rockers and swings-one facing the stream and the other the shaded lawn.....a stone fireplace flanked by Adirondacks-style furniture, a screened-in porch with a chaise-longue, beds with those branch-style headboards......and the details...wow....the knickknacks were overthetop......'twig'-handled silverware.....papabear/mammabear/babybear chairs on the porch, a towelrack that looked like a moosehead....even the showerstall was 'tiled' in river rocks......absolutely charming........and really close to carver's gap....where our hike began.......i must say up front that my spouse's insistance that our daughter and i walk only part of the trek was a good call........the 13 mile trail started on an uphill so steep that within 5 minutes we could see none of our 15 member party.....we walked 1.5 hours up the trail, past misty scenery, wildflowers in full bloom....and blueberry bushes.....omg...nobody told us there would be ripe blueberries.......suffice it to say that few of our friends and family who saw the hike as a competition...save the observant middle child..... actually saw the berries....let alone ate them......in fact....once we had reached the top of our third bald...or peak...and turned back toward the car.......the sun shone so brilliantly upon those bushes that the ripest berries seemed spotlighted.......such a delightful surprise for a blueberry fan.........and so we who only did part of the course were able to grocery shop, cook supper, and shower and relax before the rest stumbled into the end point...where out friends were staying in a b&b that was not so charming as our rental......they all came over to our creekside cabin...we fit 16 around the picnic tables, including a duke divinity student that the lone bachelor in our midst acquired along the way......she was charming as well.......and so we are back home, settling into a month as a foursome rather than a threesome......for the record, the best moment of the trip was coming back from supper in north carolina on friday...when all three children were singing the theme to goldeneye...accopella....now that was priceless...........

drivers with signs.....

ok, so the best part of today, aside from my visit with jane and picking up my boy at the airport.....was the revolving assortment of drivers with signs that stood back from the crush of folks awaiting loved ones at the top of the escalator.....often i missed the matchup completely, one minute the driver would be there with his sign saying michael cumstein....and the next time i glanced over he was gone...presumably with mr zumstein.....many of the folks who belonged to signs didn't look like folks who would be met with a driver.....like the young mother in flipflops grasping her toddler and a diaper bag......go figure.....and then there was kathlyn bentley.....i spent an inordinate amount if time keeping an eye out for her......having never seen another kathlyn in the flesh ....and she didn't come and she didn't come.....much like our boy was delayed so long in customs/immigration....and then there she was.....followed by 2 small children with monogramed backpacks....and looking quite elegant in a white linen top that was not visibly wrinkled and a black skirt.......good haircut...at least the other kathlyns of the world have good taste......i also witnessed a sign-free plane-meeting..........a fellow with the reds organization meeting up with a player-sort carrying a vuitton bag......a call-up from the minors?.......intriguing.......the sort of people who are met at the airport and driven off into the tri-state........our daughter and i laughed that we should have brought a sign........in case our middle boy failed to recognize us after 2 months..........

home again.....

ok, so......Stephan is home til September 9...........amen.....

rock and roll will save the world......

ok, so......a little girl in halifax, england was saved a most painful death because she instantly recognized the grenade she dug up in her garden as the same instrument of death that she remembered from greenday t-shirts.......

dagnabit.......

ok, so...i was half-way through burning a collection of newish downloads when i remembered the one song i forgot.....and i was thus forced to assemble another songset for a second cd........i don't suppose one can start over on these things....as electronics equipment fails to recognize ooooops as a directive........and so i have 2 mixes to take along for the trip to cincinnati and back........mostly songs sent to me, and songs i have sent others........with a few standards mixed in....as if csn&y protest songs could possibly be out of date........

on top of things......

ok, so........my middle child is ocming home on thursday....and i have delighted in preparing supper for his homecoming celebration.......a bit ahead...but this way i do not have to cook while we are getting him settled in......tortilla espagnol, and a cold lentil salad and walnut brownies....so far...to go along with yet-to-be-purchased cheeses and breads.......sounds just yummy.........i am reading a prequel to a book-club book while the tortilla cools.....a book called zippy.......about a girl who grows up in mooreland, indiana....which sounds like the makings of boring drivel....except that her memoir is gigglingly funny, with bits and bobs that remind me of my own childhood, without the dysfunction.......or the dead piglet piles.......her renditions of relationships....with family as well as with friends are poignant to the point of enviable.......gentle readers....thsi is a book soundly voted down by the bookclub last year........only for its sequel....she got up off the couch to rise from the ashes as a solid pick this year.......i am reading zippy before...couch because that is how the friend who vetted the book felt it should be done.....and she is right, of course........first things first.......i have to undersatnd all of the players before i can understand why it was such a big deal for zippy's mamma, depressed for years, to reinvent herself by going back to school, losing weight, and getting a job........i cannot wait to finish book one so i can move on to book two........but i digress from homecomings......we are all anxious for our boy to be home.....bon voyage........