Joie de vivre

I recently got a new little tea maker (something along the lines of a small french press, but for tea). It was made in Taiwan, where they presumably don't have very good translators. Or perhaps they just ran the directions through Bablefish?

I come bearing two more additions to my list of favorite words:

celebratory and venue

Last night all my dreams centered around running red lights. o_O

Chainreading is still down...

Still no call about the laptop...

But I'm coming to you from a nice comfy chair in a nook of the library (wireless, 'tis grand), because I'm taking an early lunch to make it to a meeting on time and the room I usually eat in it is occupied, and it is 105 outside and I think it's a good day to not go out to eat, and how much longer can I make this sentence without stopping for breath?

There. 

Spoken English is so imprecise. How many of you pronouce "totally" as though it contained a "d"? I often do. And then I think of something amphibious.

Anyone ever had experience with the any lecture series from The Great Courses by The Teaching Company? I keep getting catalogs for them and they've finally put a bunch of them on sale. I'm thinking I'll order "The History of the English Language"--it's 36 lectures on CD for around $55 dollars (when it usually costs $250), taught by Professor Seth Lerer from Stanford. I think it sounds facinating, and it would be perfect for use while working out, since the lectures are 30 minutes each, just enough to get me through each days alloted time.

The lecture titles look so great--"The Pre-history of English", "Dialect Jokes and Literary Representation in Middle English", "How We Speak: the Great Vowel Shift". And the professor is described as having a great talent for reading Old and Middle English.

Sweet.

These are some of my favorite words:

Plethora, seismic, neophyte, façade, serendipity, celebratory, venue, reciprocity.

What are yours?

I am lonely this morning. Talk to me.

I love Club crackers quite intensely. Sandra should not have showed me where the box was kept.

Did anyone besides me ever notice what a redundancy "armed gunmen" is? Or "deadly killer"? Or "surviving widow?"

Last night was dissapointing (but thanks for the prayers--I know they did something good), as I rather thought it would be, but now I am Fine. Life goes on. And I got some fabulous sunset-over-the-lake pictures on the way home.

Sandra's best friend is having major surgery today--something that involves actually stopping her heart for a period of time--and nobody's gotten any word about her yet. It's odd to have to try to encourage someone when it's usually me with the fears like that.

Wednesday a week ago, I had pears, pineapple, and potatoes--fried--for lunch. The pears and the pineapple went really well together, and the potatoes...well, they were good all by themselves.

A humuhumunakunukuapuaa is a small tropical Hawaiian fish. I was thinking someone might recognize the letters as being the ones in the Hawaiian alphabet, but all the guesses were really good. pansyprincess, did you really know what it was, or did you guess? Either way, good job!

And hunkerousness means "opposition to progress." I KNEW answers to that one would be hilarious! I think melyndie had the most inventive--certainly most descriptive--answer. And it wasn't about a cute guy. *grin*

(Both of those words were taken from my favorite dictionary, Mrs. Byrne's Dictional of Unusual, Obsure, and Preposterous Words. Note, however, that they are all REAL words. To quote the preface: "Every entry, even the most ludicrous, has been accepted as a formal or legitimate English word by at least one major dictionary.")

6/3
I saw a pantomime today called "Double Faces." Um. It was...interesting. But pantomimes always leave me going, "What the heck?!

In more important news: my mom's ok. Thank you, God!! She's recovering from surgery and will be fine. Wheee! I don't know what to do with myself with all this worry off my mine. =)

I still have too much to do, though. So much, that I end up doing the things like reading and writing emails that really honestly could wait. Oh well--it's my life?


6/9
Ever realize, quite suddenly, that as you sit here doing whatever you're doing, that all your friends and acquaintances all over the world are also alive and breathing and doing things too? That they don't just exist when you're around them, or hearing from them via email or phone call or IM? Sometimes I can barely believe that as I live my life separated by such far distances from them, the hundreds of people that I know are also living their lives; eating and sleeping and talking as I do, separated from me just as I am from them.

...It's kind of freaky, when you think about it.

6/11
Nothing very interesting is happening. I have too much to do, but I'm bored. My oldest friend is coming this weekend, along with like, twenty other people, someone's getting married to the person I've secretly named The Hobbit Guy, Grandma's being a brat, and I found my perfect shirts (!) and above all, I have too much to do.

Argh.

Where did my life go? Or rather, what kind of a life did I have before this?

I feel random and confusing and sort of eccentric. And very much the enigma. And I apparently pulled a muscle in my abdomen and it HURTS.

6/17

I missed Father's Day *compeletly*. heh heh. (Accidental? I wonder...) It was ok, though, since everyone else seemed to have forgotten also. We'll have to do something nice for him at some later and unexpected date. =)

I have a new word: gawped. It's like a cross between gape and gawk, and I honestly saw it in a book. This doesn't mean it is necessarily a *real* word, since it was a Pratchett book. But I really like it. Miriam W. was definitely gawping at me during church....again. I felt like gawping right back.

My old friend Seh (not-her-real-name...well, kind-of-her-real-name) was here this weekend. I hadn't seen her in honestly ages (a year). We had fun and watched Fellowship of the Ring and made lunch and I am so TOTALLY in awe of people who can draw! After we watched the movie (her first time ever seeing it), she sat down and produced an accurate, if rather comic, sketch of Merry, complete with apple in hand. In like, two minutes. I should frame it or "find something else useful to do."

Seh brought me a stuffed Chihuahua, too. With a collar that says Pippi and a gold hoop earring. This is definitely one of those annoying Inside Jokes. **hugs it** Lol, she also brought me a huge orange Beware Of Dog sign.

6/19

Yay. Had eye Dr. appointment today--eyes are great, no disease, and they haven't gotten worse! The left is even slightly less nearsighted. ; ) Ordered new contacts, new glasses (as if I'll be wearing them)...also bought a new watch, but not at the Drs. =) It's too big, of course, but nothing fits on my wrists.

AND I HATE THIS KEYBOARD. It's too Big. And Clunky. I keep Hitting The Wrong Keys.

Argh.