Category Archives: Words

books, Fantasy, Poems, Radio, Uncategorized, Words

Narration

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This was one of the poems last week on Writer’s Almanac.

The Cross of Snow

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face—the face of one long dead—
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Although I’ve never been a huge Longellow fan, I had been thinking of Rhiannon right before I clicked on the site, so this poem really spoke to me.

Of course, I had to look up “benedight” (it means blessed) and that led me down a rabbit hole where I eventually found this spoken version on YouTube.

The poem is read by Jean Aked, but I found it a little off, partly because it’s a woman’s voice narrating a poem from the point of view of an older man, but also because of her English accent; Longfellow was such a quintessential American poet.

Several years ago I might not have really noticed this, but listening to lots of audiobook has made me a bit of a voice “connoisseur”.  There are quite a few book narrators whose voices I recognize when I hear them and I have favorites: Simon Vance, Robert Bathurst, Jayne Entwhistle.  I usually like it when authors narrate their own books (like Bill Bryson) because they bring a special nuance to their own material.  Occasionally I don’t like a narrator at all, which can actually sour an audio book for me.  One of the most prolific audio book narrators is George Guidall.  Unfortunately, the very first audio book that I heard him narrate was something I just couldn’t stand.  So even after several years, every time I hear his voice it takes me right back to that dreadful book and I have to really concentrate to get past my negative feelings.  But he is a very good narrator so I continue to try to get past this.

All this leads me back to the Longfellow poem.  I’ve heard two narrators read it now and I think I’ll stick with the Garrison Keillor version!

It’s the story of your life.  Who would you like to narrate it?

Family, Food, Uncategorized, Words

Cheap Like Borscht

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I thought when I left Winnipeg for the last time in 1988 that I would  never live in another place so full of Ukrainians. There  are hordes of people of Ukrainian ancestry  in Manitoba, and they weave a fascinating influence into the tapestry of region. There are elementary schools in Winnipeg that have Ukrainian language  immersion classes. You can get Ukrainian food in lots of places.

Imagine my surprise when we moved to western  ND and found ourselves fifteen miles from Belfield,  a vibrant  Ukrainian enclave of immigrants and their descendants with a strong cultural identity and customs, including  a Cultural Institute,  Ukrainian churches, and a summer dance festival.  There are locally made perogies in all the grocery  stores here.

I was talking with a Belfield native last week, a foster mom and Licensed Addiction Counselor, who is married to a Ukrainian national who immigrated about ten years ago. She noticed my diploma  from the University of Manitoba,  and asked how expensive tuition must have been for me, since I was a foreign student.  I told her that tuition was “Cheap like Borscht”,  as there was no differential cost to out of Province students.  She was amazed about my description of tuition costs, since the only person she ever heard use  that phrase was her immigrant husband.

The foster mom found her husband in  Winnipeg at a Ukrainian dance  competition.  “Cheap like Borscht ” is a common phrase  in Winnipeg.   I assumed it was something everyone said, but apparently not.  I think it is a lovely phrase.

What are your favorite turns of phrase?  Got any good Borscht recipes?

Media, Radio, Stories, Uncategorized, Words

Baboon Podcasts

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Husband commented the other day that he thought the Baboons should make podcasts because we have so many  things to talk about and say to one another. It is an interesting idea. I don’t listen to podcasts. I probably would listen if I had a longer commute, but it takes me less than 5 minutes to get to work, and when I am at home I decompress by listening to music. I know that the topic has come up on the Trail before, and that  Baboons listen to them.

What podcasts do you listen to?  What sort of podcasts can you imagine Baboons creating?

Family, Health, Media, Uncategorized, Words

What’s in a Name

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Husband had to get prescription eye drops for after his cataract surgery. One option involved two different drops administered to the affected eye three times a day. Those drops could be obtained at our local pharmacy.  The other, more expensive, option involved getting one eye drop mixture from an East Coast company called Designer Drugs.  I thought that the company name was pretty clever and spoke volumes to its mission and activity. I wonder if it also leads to regular visits from the drug enforcement agency where it is located.

We ate in a Thai restaurant called Eat Thai Cafe after Husband’s surgery. That, too, has a clever name. Where are you going? Oh, we’re going to Eat Thai. (The food, by the way, was fabulous!)

What are some memorable names you have encountered? What are some product names you would like to see? How do you choose names for your pets?

 

 

Business, Media, space, Uncategorized, Words

Ohm!

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Photo credit:  NASA

Twice yesterday I uttered the words “it’s why I’ll never get on the space shuttle.”

On the way to work, I stopped at SuperAmerica. Sorry, Speedway.  The cashier was struggling with the computer that runs the gas pumps, having to basically re-boot it every time somebody needed to pump their gas.  While I was waiting for her to ring me up (no gas for me), I commiserated with her and she made a derogatory remark about computers in general.  I replied “Yea, it’s why I’ll never get on the space shuttle.”

Fast forward a couple of hours and we had a “flub” (Tech’s word for it, not mine) which locked a lot of us out of our program subdirectories for about an hour. I was the one who called the helpline to document the issue so I was the one to hear the tech swear that computers would be the death of him.  As I repeated my space shuttle line, I realized that I say this often in response to somebody griping about pcs and computers in general.  Interesting that there is a need – seems to me that our society depends heavily on computers but generally doesn’t like them.  So here I am, stuck with “it’s why I’ll never get on the space shuttle” as my personal mantra.  I supposed it could be worse.

Do you have a mantra? What would you like it to be?

Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays, Seasons, Uncategorized, Words

Good Fortune

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Fortune cookies, while a fun novelty, don’t always register for me. Most of the time that YA and I have Chinese food, it is at home, delivered by our favorite place, Fresh Wok.   YA loves cream cheese wontons, which I consider dessert; this combined with the fact that the fortune cookies are always at the bottom of the bag, they are usually overlooked until after we’re full.

I have some good friends who are moving this week, so this past weekend, I took Chinese take-out over to them so they would have one night when they didn’t have to cook. I decided to make it an early Chinese New Year party so brought lucky money envelopes, red paper plates/cups, the works.  When I was setting things out, the fortune cookies were actually on the top of the bag so I put them each of our place settings.

Here is what mine said:

“Because of your melodic nature, the moonlight never misses an appointment.”

Lovely, although in terms of it being a fortune, all I can figure is I’d better keep being melodic or the moonlight will miss an appointment?

What fortune would YOU like to crack open?

Business, Family, home, Kids, Stories, Uncategorized, Words

Politeness – Great Expectations?

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Today’s post comes to us from our Ben.

I’ve been pondering this post about how our daughter sort of demands politeness. If she says “Thanks”, you better say “You’re welcome” or she’ll hound you until you do. And it makes me wonder what exactly the rules for politeness are.

“Here’s your breakfast”
“Thanks”
“You’re welcome”

Is different from

“Have a good day”
“Thanks”

Except in our case it would be like this:

Me: “Have a good day”
Her: “Thanks”
….
Her: “I said Thanks!”
Me: “You’re Welcome!”

Just one of her little quirks.

Her: “I like this movie.”
Me: “Ah”.
Her: “…I said I like this movie.”
Me: “I know. I heard you.”
…
Her: Mumble mumble mumble then very softly “I said I like this movie. I don’t know why he won’t answer” mumble mumble mumble.”

Me: “Stop picking at that.”
[keeps picking]
Me: “I said stop picking at that.”
Her: “OK” [keeps picking]
Me: “Hey! Stop picking”
Her: “But it’s bothering me.” [still picking]
Me: “I know, but you have to stop picking or it’s going to get worse.”
Her: Still picking “But it’s bothering me!”
Me: “I know. But you have t—”
Her: “OK FINE!!” [storms off to room.]
OK, that’s just teenager attitude, I get that.

She’ll apologize a lot for things that don’t necessarily need an apology. That’s OK, but she’s fussy about the response to that too. Just this morning I said she shouldn’t stack glasses together in the sink. She just didn’t know that, so I told her. She said “Sorry”. I said “Yep”. She says, “I said I’m sorry”. “I know, I heard you; you didn’t know so I’m telling you. You don’t have to say ‘sorry’.”

I think she expects us to say, “You’re forgiven” to every “Sorry”.

Do I have to? Is that expected?

The rules of grammar etiquette are hard. And sometimes I just don’t want too. And sometimes I don’t know she wants from me.

Worst Business Grammar you’ve heard?

Art, Fantasy, Games, Uncategorized, Words, work

Armadillos!!!!

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I am a calendar person. I love them.  I have multiple calendars at work: one online, my Daytimer, a year-long calendar on the wall so I can look ahead and a month-at-a-time –print out on which I cross off each day as it goes by.  I started doing this last year, to count down to a program that was driving me crazy and after the program was over, I just kept doing it (I assume one of these days I will decide I really don’t need to do this anymore.)

At home I have a pretty calendar on the fridge, a handmade calendar in my bedroom that attaches to a wooden pedestal and a birthday list in my studio that “says” it’s a calendar, but it’s just a listing by month of birthdays so I think that might be stretching it. I also keep a few things on my phone calendar.

In addition to having birthdays listed on the “calendar” in my studio, I also keep birthdays in my Daytimer. This means that once a year I go through the old Daytimer pages and copy the birthdays over to new Daytimer pages.  It’s a relaxing project; this year I used magenta ink.

As I was copying over the birthdays yesterday, I came across a notation on June 27 of this year that said “Armadillos”. It was written in big letters in the after-hours section of the day.  And it had several  exclamation marks and was highlighted!   I have no idea what this was about.  Was it a southwestern-themed bar that I was supposed to go to after work with colleagues.  Was it a concert that someone on the Trail mentioned?  Was it some National Geographic special I wanted to watch?  No clue.

Any idea why I wrote “Armadillos” in my Daytimer?

Baboon Achievers, books, education, History, Media, Uncategorized, Words

Glossary, Almost Two Decades into the Millennium

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Rivertown.

Ever wonder, Baboons, what a “vlog” is, or how long the word “selfie” has been around? Here’s an article with 50 words that have been added to the dictionary since the beginning of this millennium, compiled by “Stacker” in this article .

Of course, they haven’t included anything from our own Glossary of Accepted Terms, but then, we haven’t added anything to our G.O.A.T for 2½ years now. Here’s what I’ve compiled since the last time .

Accordion calendar – a schedule with a too-concentrated number of days, followed by a more spacious number of days.“ Mostly I’ve fine with what I signed up for, except when too many things are required close together – it seems to occur sort of like an accordion playing.” Barbara in Rivertown   August 27, 2019 at 4:31 pm

Adiophra – insignificant things that one allows to make one’s life one of stress and worry.  “My main worry is that my flight from Bismarck isn’t delayed and I make my connecting flight in Minneapolis. My worries are adiophra.”  reneeinnd says: March 29, 2017 at 5:42 pm

Akrasia – Weakness of the will, by which we do that which we really want to do in  the full knowledge that we should be doing something else. [I lost track of the origin of this one – anyone remember whose it is?]

Arrghify – to increase the intensity of, as in: “You should teach them all how to POWERIFY that!  Actualizify! Collaboratify! incentivisify!”      xdfben September 25, 2018 at 10:45 pm

[Arrghify belongs in our dictionary   NorthShorer September 25, 2018 at 11:14 pm ]

Cliffy – a piece of arcane knowledge, a la Cliff on the TV Series Cheers, as here: “Nice Cliffy.”   Linda March 3, 2019 at 9:05 pm …. in response to: “Blue Mound State park in Luverne, MN has one of the most genetically pure bison herds in the country.”  reneeinnd   March 3, 2019 at 11:20 am …

Farcher – a cross between a farmer and rancher, as in: “I used to spend the first week of November with my farcher friend, Larry.”   July 3, 2019 at 10:19 am   Minnesota Steve

Geezer chute – I think your observations about what is being made are correct – not that you are spiraling down the geezer chute… verily sherrilee   September 26, 2018 at 2:45 pm

Marie Kondo – verb transitive:  to make things disappear, as in: “Can we Marie Kondo the heck out of this snow? It no longer brings me joy…”  ANNA, March 2, 2019 at 11:44 am   

Opposite equivalent – an alternative alternative (?) “Perhaps the opposite equivalent (I just invented that phrase!) is going outside every night before bed and standing for a few minutes.”    xdfben    January 28, 2019 at 12:33 pm

Tsundoku — A Japanese word for the guilt-pile of books you’ve bought but haven’t yet read.     PlainJane    May 1, 2018 at 1:06 pm

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What new word would you like to see added to the world-wide dictionary? OR, what word would you like to never hear again?

Art, books, Nature, Poems, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized, Words

Reading Mystery

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A few years ago, back when a librarian needed to check out your books for you, the older red-haired librarian at the desk (Anna would know her name) said “My, you have a wide set of topics here.” I don’t remember what I was checking out, but I do read across a fairly wide swath.  Science fiction, fiction, mystery, a variety of science, biography, history, philosophy, fantasy, kid lit, thrillers.  About the only thing I don’t read is romance if I can help it.

It was about that time that I started keeping track of how I got the idea to read a particular book. I have several categories for this – my book clubs, BookPage from the library, Writer’s Almanac, my various “lists” (English Monarchs, Presidents, Newbury & Caldecott winners, etc.) and the Trail. By far the biggest category is O&A (Out & About), a catch-all for everything else.

I’m pretty good at remembering where I find a title that I want to read, but every now and then I am surprised when I go to my hold shelf in the library. I knew from looking at my online account that there was an InterLibrary Loan titled Meetings with Remarkable Trees waiting for me.  It had the sound of poetry and many of the poetry books I look for end up coming from other libraries: I assumed it was poetry.  So imagine my surprise it’s a lovely photo book with essays about specific trees.  It’s fascinating but I’m not sure where the idea came from?  It’s not exactly the kind of thing that you find in the mainstream.

So I’ve decided it must be something that was recommended to me on the Trail. It’s about nature, so it might be Clyde (he is usually my go-to for travel books, but it seems like something he might like).  But it has absolutely lovely nature photos, so it might be the kind of thing recommended by Steve or Cynthia or BiR.  It’s a little off the beaten path, which has Bill written all over it.  The author is originally from Ireland, which means that it might have been recommended by PJ, who has a broader range of non-American authors.  I’ve haven’t gone back to the Trail and done a search: for now it’s a nice little mystery.

Do you do well at taking advice? Or do you prefer to GIVE advice?