If you still have Spring Fever after the Summer Solstice, is it serious?
(FORWHY = because…)
Crazy
1. Informal: insane
2. Like crazy = wildly
3. Extremely fond
4. Foolish or eccentric
Ah, crazy in the attic (BOLIDE = fireball, and SINCIPUT = forehead). Starting to have a ring to it. But it’s a wonderfully sunny day. The music’s on (Teddy Thompson, Anthony, Rufus) and I’m thrilling at my lofty position (KITTIWAKE = cliff nesting gull) in this weather. The breeze (ZEPHYR) blows through it. Unfortunately, toy boy next door has just started up, he’s plugged in (BILLINGSGATE = profanity), and my concentration is now punctuated by drill bits and my thought processes sawed in half (AMAUROTIC = blind). I’m rethinking this blog, working title now, “The Sniper In The Attic,” (GASCONADE = bravado).
There was violence at The Greater Vancouver Zoo, Mia abducted (CAITIFF = cowardly) and Jocko bludgeoned (HECATOMB = slaughter). I was taken to the zoo for Mother’s Day last month. Two zoos in one year, a new trend for me. Funny, as I was once the keeper of my own exotic wildlife (life with many children), (REMONTANT – blooming twice). My family and I walked the acreage, no hurry, a cold wind but no rain. We had Hayden’s eyes to look through. My grandson (LEMAN = sweetheart) at eighteen months, is the youngest ornithologist I know. Or future student of the scientific study of birds. Right now he’s in communion. He can appreciate the goats of Wright Street, the baboons that shriek at our sight, the gray majesty of a tilting elephant, or the ant in his mother’s lavender plant. But if there is birdsong, if one lone bird passes in his peripheral or overhead, he will stop, and listen, and watch. Always he will murmur, “Bird” to himself, reverentially. (ORISON = prayer.)
What a dream, to lean against the fence in the wind and watch a giraffe (BORT = diamond fragments), high stepping daintily on such precariously long stick legs, making her way to what looked like a storybook, or cartoon house (ANAMNESIS = recollection) in the distance. A doorway cut into two stories, to allow for their height.
As we were leaving we stopped at the memorial to the spider monkeys who had been violated. There were flowers attached to the fence, notes (GLOSSALGIA = tongue pain) and photos from happier times, thank you’s, condolences for Jocko, prayers for a safe return of Mia. I held Hayden in my arms. We looked at the pictures, at the candles flickering (SALTATORY = leaping). There was a ghetto blaster with a tape playing an instrumental rendition of Amazing Grace over and over (SEMPITERNITY = forever). I walked to the parking lot carrying Hayden (SUMPTER = pack animal) and sang my Gospel version and he sang too. Didn’t know the words but pressed to my throat, he knew the meaning. He sang scat from the vibrations. (SCANDENT = climbing.)
I’m getting new shoes on Monday. This is very exciting for me. My walking shoes have collapsed inside and I cannot wear them. (RAMPIKE = standing dead tree.) This is my equivalent of getting a brand new set of wheels. (AUTARKY = self-sufficiency.) Now with summer here (INCHOATE = just begun), I know that the bright-eyed dawn can call me and I will answer (BIRL = spin).
As an employee now in the restaurant business, I went to a customer appreciation day at the local Domaine de Chaberton Estate Winery (CRU = vineyard). We were all invited to a wine-tasting and open house. There were door prizes and I won a set of luggage (SCRY = read a crystal ball). Bye bye, bye bye, bye bye.
Walking home from work Friday night a little earlier than usual, I saw the lights of the opening reception at The Fort Gallery, the community overflowing into the street. It was not over yet. I knew a look at the art (GHIBLI/REMUDA/GHAT = desert wind/herd of horses/stairway to water), would BESOM (broom) my blahs away. The women were chic (SALTANT = leaping), the men flirtatious (by morning a KATZENJAMMER = hangover). On the white walls between the beautiful pieces were the macabre red smears (ICHOR = blood of the gods) of the mosquitoes that are puncturing Fort Langley. The patrons had fought back! “We will kill for our art.”
I am on a word swoon, although my stinginess (PARSIMONY) with trusting myself (POLTROON = coward) to come to my blog and seek clarity (GLIM = light source) has escaped me. I have practiced my own COMSTOCKERY = censorship. My outlook has been MURREY = grayish, purple. My latest attempt at relaxation is the online vocabulary test (ATARACTIC = tranquilizing) at http://www.freerice.com. These are not the most beautiful words I’ve fallen for, but they surprise me, and I am learning. My attraction to words is like EUPNEA = normal breathing. And to believe that this word game (SCIOLISM = superficial knowledge) is putting rice into bowls for hungry people, well, then my own speechlessness (APHASIA) has made way for a greater cause.
I can’t be the only one. If you’re crazy and you know it, clap your hands. I will be listening, but no CLAQUE = hired applauders. And if you’re Buddhist, just work with the one.
I’m out stealing roses.
Good Life
diane
