Gryphon's Word of the Day, June 29, 2008

The word of the day for June 29, 2008 is "vermin" — noun — 1 a: small common harmful or objectionable animals (as lice or fleas) that are difficult to control. b: birds and mammals that prey on game. c: animals that at a particular time and place compete (as for food) with humans or domestic animals. 2: an offensive person.

I found a spider in the toilet bowl yesterday afternoon. I'm not sure what she was doing—it was hard for me to tell, what with eight legs to watch—perhaps a cross between the breast stroke and the butterfly. It hardly matters. I flushed her and her big sister that I caught in the bathtub right on down the drain. I'm not frightened of spiders unduly, you understand. It's just that the brown recluse, which is endemic in these parts has a particularly nasty bite. I've seen the photos, so if you're interested in that sort of thing, try the ask.com gallery. Yes, both of them I flushed were brown recluse spiders. I understand they have a close relative in the Northwest called a hood spider, which is more the outdoors type. My son introduce one to me that had come in on some garden greens while we were at his house.

For the most part I'm happy to let arthropods, rodents and reptiles alone. If they don't come into my house, I don't bother them. Flies, I try to shoo out an open door or window. If I see other vermin or their leavings indoors, it's all-out war. Mom always said there was no shame in getting [vermin] The shame is in keeping them. Snakes are a bit harder, as they aren't so easy to trap. Malthion will kill them, but you don't want that in the house. It's easier just to keep stopping up all the cracks and holes to keep them outside in the first place.

Our quote for the day is from Terry Eagleton (b. 1943), British critic. Ideology, introduction (1991):

     What persuades men and women to mistake each other from time to time for gods or vermin is ideology. One can understand well enough how human beings may struggle and murder for good material reasons—reasons connected, for instance, with their physical survival. It is much harder to grasp how they may come to do so in the name of something as apparently abstract as ideas. Yet ideas are what men and women live by, and will occasionally die for.

;^) Jan

Tags: vermin

Gryphon's Word of the Day, June 24, 2008

The word of the day for June 24, 2008 is "electioneer" — intransitive verb — : to take an active part in an election; specifically : to work for the election of a candidate or party.

Krissy wants to know if we've been approached by campaign workers for the presidential campaign. (She was in her jammies when they came to her door.) Here we are more concerned about the union decertification attempt. The General Office personnel, which includes drafters—excuse me, design technicians—as well as office assistants, have been organized for about ten years now. Every time the contract comes up for renegotiation, some of the represented group petition to decertify our union. They have even tried to get the Teamsters and the International Association of Machinists into the arena to dilute votes for the IFTPE affiliate to which we belong. I don't really understand why. Kansas is a right-to-work state, which means they can get most of the benefits of union representation without actually joining. If they have any complaint about how the contract is negotiated, they can always join and get on the committee (in fact, we wish they would so they can complain to the right people).

Anyway, the Union reps have been at our door this past month. They've also been handing out lapel pins, flags and flyers at the entry gates at work. The anti-unionist have mostly confined themselves to inflammatory e-mails. Not that the Union has ignored electronic media. I cleaned out my Outlook mailbox at work this morning (election day) and found that fully half the deletions were pro- or anti-union. I'm glad they don't have my AOL e-ddress.

Our quote for the day is from Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893), U.S. president. Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes: Nineteenth President of the United States, vol. II, p. 497, ed. Charles Richard Williams, The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 5 vols. (1922-1926), Hayes to William Henry Smith (August 24, 1864):

     Any officer fit for duty who at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress ought to be scalped.

;^) Jan

Tags: electioneer

Gryphon's Word of the Day, June 23, 2008

The word of the day for June 23, 2008 is "unsullied" — adjective — : not spoiled or made impure.

There's something about opening a new tub of butter or a new can of coffee. OK, so I'm just wierd. When I was five, I went to morning kindergarten. One winter day, it snowed while we were in class. On the way home I had to pass a ditch that was just perfect. No person or dog or bird had put their mark on that dip and mound of snow. Something told me that a snow angel or three was what this expanse of snow needed more than anything. So I provided those snow angels and got home too late to do something my mother wanted us to do. She fussed about the snow in my galoshes. "But it was snowing out," I explained innocently. It was worth the spanking.

A week ago Saturday morning, I took the pup for a walk. The sun was just right and a hint of breeze kept it cool. No one was out because they were sleeping in. It was way too early for lawn mowing. In some ways that's the best part of the week. Birds singing, but no dogs bark. Rabbits and squirrels going about their business. Just me and the dog, and he's not putting in his two cents so I can let my mind roll on as the song goes. It's a walking meditation.

We turned the corner and... The neighbor's mimosa trees had bloomed overnight.

I wish I could post the glorious smell.

Our quote for the day—which doesn't fit the mood, but is such an interesting thought—is from Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), German philosopher. Originally published in Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2 (1851). “On Psychology,” Essays and Aphorisms, Penguin (1970):

     True, genuine contempt, which is the obverse of true, genuine pride, stays hidden away in secret and lets no one suspect its existence: for if you let a person you despise notice the fact, you thereby reveal a certain respect for him, inasmuch as you want him to know how low you rate him—which betrays not contempt but hatred, which excludes contempt and only affects it. Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.

;^) Jan

Tags: unsullied

Gryphon's Word of the Day, June 11, 2008

The word of the day for June 11, 2008 is "gruesome"; — adjective — : inspiring horror or repulsion : GRISLY.

I fell out of bed the night before last. To be more precise, I was pushed, shoved or dumped off the bed. I was rudely awakened at approximately too early in the morning to find myself not-levitating between the dog's crate and the bed. After some initial flailing about to orient myself and turn on a light, I found my husband picking himself off the floor on my side of the foot of the bed. He, dear man, did not mean to create a ruckus; he just needed to go to the bathroom.

Since he is rather top-heavy and suffers from arthritis in his knees and hips, it is fairly easy for him to lose his balance. Once having lost his balance, he cannot catch himself because of arthritis in his hands. Thus I forgive him for an unnecessary "trip". Some of you will say that I should remove to another bedroom. Well, I have thought of that. Somehow it strikes me as a defeatist attitude. He's had to give up so many of the things he enjoys this past year because of the various problems accompanying old age. I don't intend to take away another comfort

What happens when one flails about in the dark, surrounded by furniture:

Our quote for the day is from Josephine Demott Robinson (1865–1948), U.S. circus performer. The Circus Lady, ch. 10 (1926). On retiring from a long career in the circus to become a Congressman’s wife, spending hours in the confines of staid social circles:

     And then came the most devastating thought of all: I was one of them. I who used to swing upside down on a living horse, who always danced when mere walking would have done, so glad was I of life, so full of health. It was the most gruesome thought I had ever had in my life.

;^) Jan

Tags: gruesome

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Gryphon's Word of the Day, June 7, 2008

The word of the day for June 7, 2008 is "metamorphosis" — noun — 1 a: change of physical form, structure, or substance especially by supernatural means. b: a striking alteration in appearance, character, or circumstances. 2: a typically marked and more or less abrupt developmental change in the form or structure of an animal (as a butterfly or a frog) occurring subsequent to birth or hatching.

Spring is always an amazing time. The plants green up and flowers bloom. I've been taking photos of the neighborhood on my daily walks with the dog. Some plants, of course, bloom every year and some every other year, some must be replanted every spring or autumn. Some, like the wildflower mix in my tree surround, seed themselves from year to year.

I really need to get a good recorder to take to work with me. There is a row of trees between the parking lot and the street, in which a mockingbird makes his home. These spring and early summer morning he sings out his heart at dawn. I have heard him, in a few moments, imitate a robin, blue jay, crow, mourning dove, meadow lark, red-headed finch, western kingbird, red-wing blackbird and something that just goes CHIRP... CHIRP. He then takes off in a flurry of white-banded wings in an aerial display to attract potential mates. Very impressive.

Our quote for the day is from Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Emerson in His Journals, June 1847, ed. Joel Porte (1982):

     Every thing teaches transition, transference, metamorphosis: therein is human power, in transference, not in creation; & therein is human destiny, not in longevity but in removal. We dive & reappear in new places.

;^) Jan

Tags: metamorphosis