Category Archives: Words

2025, animals, books, Uncategorized, Words

Murder at Gull’s Nest

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As you all know, a lot of things strike my interest where books are concerned – recommendations from friends, stories online and titles.  Give me a good title and I’m all in.  At least to start with.

I see a lot of books on Facebook these days.  And as if they are tempting me personally, there are a lot of catchy titles.  Here are a few that I have on hold at the library right now that I chose simply from their titles:  The Dead Husband Cookbook, Inside of a Dog, Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests, And Then We Hit a Rock.  Based on my luck with these kinds of picks, most of these probably won’t get finished.  And Then There Were Scones only made it about three chapters.  Awful.

So I approached Murder at Gull’s Nest by Jess Kidd with a bit of trepidation.  I think if the library started a section of Cozy Mysteries, it would probably be shelved there and to be fair, it did tick off all the cozy “boxes”, but not in a way that is run-of-the-mill way.  The characters are real, the story is compelling and importantly I wasn’t able to figure out the murdered until almost 75% of the way through the book.

And even more importantly, the language was fabulous; I do love a good turn of phrase:

  • “Outside, the sky is brightening, which is of no concern to the room, daylight being dissuaded by heavy velvet drapes and the somber yews that crowd about the window.”
  • “Nora steps into a cheap café and orders a pot of tea. When it arrives it is what she hoped for:  decent and strong with a skin a mouse could skate on.”
  • “Humans can’t tolerate emptiness for long… if I’m empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I’m not alone!”
  • “Jesus, who would want to read about a failed old nun, with her stipend, and second-hand shoes.”

So I’m recommending this book to everybody and have requested a couple more Jess Kidd titles

Have you read something recently just because it had a good title?  How did that turn out?

2025, Family, Food, home, Uncategorized, Words

Cooking With Gas

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One major adjustment to living in our new house is relearning how to cook with a gas stove. My parents had a gas stove until I was about 18 when we moved to a new house and they had a glass topped stove installed.

My mother instilled in me a fear of gas stoves. In her mind they were just bombs waiting to explode. I know there are lots of safety features in these stoves now, but I still am anxious. With a glass stove top, spilling liquids or having drips from lids that are slightly askew is no big deal. On one of my first forays into using the new stove last week I spilled a very small amount of water near a burner and it wouldn’t ignite, just clicked with no flame until a few minutes had passed and the water evaporated. We are being much more careful as we cook so we don’t spill on the stove top.

It is hard for Husband to hear the igniting clicks if he doesn’t have his hearing aids in, so I find myself surreptitiously monitoring his stove use. I hope I can relax as we get more experience with this stove. It cooks things really well and we seem to have more control as we cook and bake. The phrase “Now you’re cooking with gas!” was a marketing slogan to encourage people to switch from wood or coal burning stoves to gas stoves in the 1930’s. It then became a general idiom to indicate the someone was doing really well. I hope we can “cook with gas” as we learn to cook with gas.

What are your experiences with gas stoves? Any favorite idioms or sayings?

2025, Media, Music, Poems, Songs, Words

Tom Lehrer – RIP

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Like many musical artists, Tom Lehrer was introduced to me on the LGMS.  I loved his funny songs and they way he crafted them with language and great satire.  This is probably my favorite:

Sadly, Tom passed away four days ago at the age of 97.  He was born in New York City and began his musical studies when he was seven.  He entered Harvard at the age of 15, studying mathematics as well as entertaining his fellow students with his comic songs.  His mathematics career and his music career existed together for many years.  His last performance was in 1972 and he taught until 2003.

Another of his most popular songs puts the table of elements to a Gilbert & Sullivan tune:

There haven’t been too many artists who can skewer the world quite the way he could.  His voice will be missed.

Do you have a favorite Tom Lehrer song?  Or another satirist?

2025, Automotive, Fantasy, Government, Poems, Words

Mixed Messages

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As bunch of errands had me on the freeway yesterday.  A little congestion slowed everybody down in time for me to look up and see this on the highway signage:

Keep your speed down
Wear your safety gear
Get home in one piece

It was more interesting than the usual signage and as it was three lines, I automatically starting counting the syllables, wondering if it was MNDots idea of highway haiku.  Not haiku.

When I got home, I wondered if I could find any information online about the signage.  I was surprised to find out that there is actually a program called “Message Monday” that encourages safe driving.  You can even submit your own idea for a message on the website.  Some of the messages are actually quite funny:

Fly under
The radar by
Obeying speed limit

Give blood
The right way
Not on the highway

Don we now our
Fastened seatbelt
Fa la la la la la

I’m not sure I want to increase my highway time on Mondays to see more of these messages, but I do find it intriguing that this program exists.   Of course, if I submit something it will have to be

Speedy Gonzalez
You’re not.  Please keep the pedal
Off of the metal

What message would you like to submit?

2025, Baboon Achievers, Mysteries, Stories, Uncategorized, Words

To Be or Not To Be…

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We’re coming up on the 10th anniversary of the baboons taking over the Trail.  The math is pretty straightforward.  6 posts a week times 52 weeks a year times 10 years.  3120.  That’s not exact but close enough for horseshoes.

I think Renee and Ben would agree with me that the QUESTION is the hardest part of writing so many posts.  What question relates to what you just wrote?  How many times have we asked a similar question.  Will the question lead to some good discussion during the day?  Will it be too hard to answer?  Too personal to answer?  Too inane to answer?

Richard Feynman once said “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”  That’s all fine and good for a world-renown physicist but he never had to come up with a good question every day!

So here’s your chance to beat Richard Feynman at his own game.

What question would YOU like to answer today?

2025, Family, Gatherings, Kids, Uncategorized, Words

Baby Sprinkle

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We will travel to Brookings, SD early next month for a Baby Sprinkle, a smaller sized Baby Shower that is being put on by friends of our son and dil who are expecting their second child in August.

I never heard the term Baby Sprinkle before, but I gather it is now the term for used when someone already has had a child and doesn’t need as many things as first time parents do. Son and dil are pretty well stocked with equipment from the birth of their first child seven years ago. We are so happy for them.

I have some baby afghans crocheted by my maternal grandmother from when our children were born and I plan to bring them, as well some other things I have in a cedar chest like family christening outfits. It will be fun.

What are some new terms or phrases you have encountered lately? What would you bring as a gift to a baby shower or sprinkle?

2025, books, Fantasy, Words

Last Lines

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The joy of occasionally re-reading a book is that you come across phrases or paragraphs that spark recognition, especially if you enjoyed them the first time around.

I’ve been reading the Gamache series by Louise Penny recently (my other book club had the first one on it’s list earlier this year) and I’m liking them just as much as the first time around.  Yesterday I came across section in The Cruelest Month.  The characters are taking part in a séance when they are frightened by an interruption:

A window pane rattled and a horrible face appeared at the glass.  The circle gasped and recoiled.   “For Christ’s sake, Dorothy, I know you’re in there,” screamed the voice.  It wasn’t what Clara had imagined would be the last words she’d hear on earth.  She’s always thought they’d be, “What were you thinking?”

This paragraph made me laugh out loud – again.  I know there are folks that like to find out the last words of famous and a quick internet search finds a lot of hits.  The only one that I can ever seem to remember is attributed to Oscar Wilde.  “This wallpaper is killing me.  Either it goes or I go.”   I’m not sure this is accurate but because it’s the kind of thing that Oscar Wilde would have said, I’ve always remembered it.  I also remember another quote attributed to him – “Life is uncertain.  Eat dessert first.”

I’m pretty sure my last words will be “Will there be donuts?”

Anyone’s last words that you remember?  That you’d like attributed to you?

 

2025, books, Mysteries, Words

Search Engine

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I drove down to the Eden Prairie library yesterday to pick up a copy of Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler for the next Blevins.  I’ve seen the Robert Montgomery movie but haven’t actually read the novel yet.

The library app showed it checked so I headed to the Mystery section.  There were a few Chandlers there but not Lady.  Next checked in Fiction; same deal.  Finally decided I should look back at the app to make sure I hadn’t mis-read it.  On the app it showed this particular tome in Non-Fiction.  WT….  Headed back to Non-Fiction, and found it using the Library of Congress classification.  The sign on the shelf said “World Fiction”. 

I didn’t look any farther to see if maybe he’s shelved anywhere else.  I know there are lots of subgenres of all kinds of lit these days but I’m perplexed about why some Chandler is in Mystery, some if in Fiction and some is in World Fiction!

Do you have an author you think should be included on the World Fiction shelves?

2024, Government, Uncategorized, Words

The New Normal

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Well, today is my last day of full time work. I will be off for a month, and then start part time work at my agency doing evaluations after March 1. I am quite happy about this. I have no unfinished  paperwork, and my therapy clients have been transferred to other therapists. Husband will keep on with his part time work. He is housed at my agency but is employed by the Human Service Center in Bismarck.

The past several months have been stressful because of getting all the necessary paperwork in to the the State Retirement office, applying for Medicare B and Social Security, and tying up loose ends. I had to formally apply for the part time position that was only advertised at my agency. I was the only applicant, as expected, and I had to dredge up my old resume, something that I haven’t had to use for a couple of decades. My colleagues are upset, and I find myself comforting them and reassuring them that I will only be gone for a month and then I will be back. That is getting tiresome. I feel  like a parent having to reassure anxious children. They also kept asking if I wanted a retirement party, but I said that since I was returning in a month that would be sort of silly. 

Everyone keeps asking me what I am going to do when I retire. My stock answer is “Clean the house”.  I have discovered that at my age I can either have a clean house or work full time. I can’t do both. People seem to expect that I will do exotic travel. My new normal will be to have more time to sort through our things preparatory to moving and feel less stressed.

How do you handle life transitions? What do you miss the most from your longest held job? What don’t you miss at all?

 

2025, education, Mysteries, Words

Weird Words

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Vocabulary has always been a fun topic for me.  It started in the fifth grade when Mrs. McCracken offered extra credit if we found the week’s vocabulary words out and about in the real world (books, newspaper, etc.) 

I get an email every day with a new vocabulary word from a dictionary site.  I’d say that about 60% of the time, I know the word or can work it out based on its parts.  Nothing else, just a few seconds of each day.

But in the last couple of weeks I’ve come across two that not only did I not know, but I had to look up how they would be used in a sentence to make sense of them. 

Animadvert – to comment unfavorably or critically.  First recorded in 1630–40.  From the Latin animadvertere, meaning “to heed, censure;” combines animum, meaning “mind,” + advertere, meaning “to notice or advert¹.”   Here are two examples.  “The famous director was not afraid to animadvert on the lack of originality in modern filmmaking” and “The union leaders publicly animadverted on the company’s decision to cut wages, arguing it was retaliation”. 

Carpophagous – feed on fruit, fruit-eating.  First recorded in 1830–40.   Combines carpo-¹, meaning “fruit,” + -phagous, meaning “eating.”   Again, two examples.  “The carpophagous bat species are crucial for pollination as they feed on nectar and fruit” and “The carpophagous diet of the iguana primarily consists of fruits and leafy greens”. 

Both of these words strike me as not being too useful these days.  I suppose in biology circles you might eventually stumble across carpophagous but even having sentences for animadvert, I’m having trouble imagining anybody using it these days.  I could be wrong – but I don’t think so (Monk theme song…)

Any words you think the English language would be better off without?