Eloquent

Eloquent [adj] (ehl uh kwunt)

1. Persuasive and moving, especially in speech.

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Eloquent does not equal boring.

Take weddings, for example.  Change the white gown to red, exchange flowers for felt button bouquets, install a photo booth rather than a photographer, relocate the reception at a zoo, have a potluck dinner, and the event can still be persuasive and moving because - guess what? -  it's personal.  Personal is eloquent, even with stammering and unfinished hemlines.

That is why I think this is one of the most eloquent save the date "cards" I have ever read - er, seen:

Repose

Repose [noun] (rih pohz)

1. Relaxation
2. Leisure
   

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Some days refuse to enter a period of repose, despite strong evidence to the contrary. 

When one is presented with a good night's sleep, minimal morning traffic, a comfy chair, long periods of uninterrupted work, and conversations with those who always make you smile, one would put that day in the win column and move on.

Of course, moving on would make for a rather dull evaluation, no?  Let's look between the lines:

When one is presented with a good night's sleep (peppered with an Iliad's worth of topsy turvy dreams), minimal morning traffic (due to fog, ice-snow fall, and a pre-sunrise departure), a comfy chair (by a drafty window), long periods of uninterrupted work (made up of the piled on work from the day before), and conversations with those who always make you smile (at bad times), one would put that day in the win column and move on.

Call me Debbie downer, but man, I could go for a period of repose.

Interregnum

Interregnum [noun] (in tuh reg nuhm)

1. Interval between reigns

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I'm dubbing this an interregnum.   While I never imagined this blog as having a ruler, tonight marks an unofficial shift in reign AKA I'm tired and devoid of intelligent thought tonight and plan to be awake and chipper and full of intelligent thought tomorrow.  Ergo, allow me to say,

The King is dead.  Long live the king.

[That is, until tomorrow...]

Inimical

Inimical [adj] (ih nihm ih kuhl)

1. Hostile
2. Unfriendly
   

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I'd be quite inimical if I were to awaken without a head on my shoulders.  Literally. 

Just saying: The Headless Horseman was cranky for a reason.

Upbraid

Upbraid [verb] (uhp brayd)

1. To scold sharply
   

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While I may not speak the language, I can tell that that chimp is upbraiding that researcher.  The chimp sits in front of a tube with grapes in it, howling at the glass separating itself from the researchers.  To say the least, the chimp is not content with not getting the grapes out of the tube.

It's Saturday morning and I find myself captivated by The Human Spark, a three-part PBS series hosted by Alan Alda.  The series aims to find out what makes us human, and this particular segment does so by showing us what is almost us: chimpanzees.  

As someone who has spent little time researching the education of children or even the development of the brain, it's fascinating to see how humans follow the "monkey see, monkey do" mentality of learning.

For example, a research places a dice in a tub behind a curtain.  She opens the curtain so the young child can see the tube.  The child tries to get the dice out, and ends up looking at the researcher expectantly.  The researcher show the child how to get it out and quickly takes the tube back behind the curtain.  She sets up the tube again and presents it to the child.  Without hesitation, the child gets the dice out just as she was shown.  And was very happy about it, to boot.
 
In mere seconds, the child learned through a social interaction, copying the action she was taught precisely.

The chimps didn't do that.  The chimp got the grape out of the tube eventually, but not by watching a human and not by watching another trained chimp. 


It would seem that humans are more influenced by how others do things.  Hence our tendency to upbraid each other for breaking the mold. 

Lumber

Lumber [verb] (luhm buhr)

1. To move slowly and awkwardly

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We lumber to help.  And I wonder. 

With the catastrophe in Haiti beckoning hundreds of reporters from around the globe to report on the turmoil, to bring voice to the human loss and pain, to call for support from those of us who can, who is feeding them, housing them, providing them water? 

It's a speck of question in a stream of thousands of bigger ones ("Why?" "How could this happen?"  "When will the suffering stop?"), but a question that surges through my brain as I watch each of the major nightly news anchors and their reports on the ground in Haiti. 

We lumber to help.

Rejoinder

Rejoinder [noun] (rih joyn duhr)

1. Response
   

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 "Never," he spit out, bathing in the glow of what he believed to be a clever rejoinder.  "My body is a temple."

"A temple which is pickled in liquor, anointed in cigarette smoke, and served only the rankest prostitutes from 5th and Main.  If that's a temple, I'm a monkey's uncle."

He stared at her blankly.

"Let me put it this way: You do all that to your body but your refuse to let me - a time-tested female with years of experience in the art of grooming - pluck that unsightly caterpillar growing between your eyes?"  Upon the word "pluck," he winced, taking a step back and waving his hands madly.

"As I said, a temple.  You wouldn't do that to Zeus, would you?"

"If you were Zeus, we wouldn't be having this conversation," she retorted, tweezers held at the ready.