Silence

A short writing exercise on the theme of silence

After

The air is calm today. Smoke is long gone, soot and dust long settled. No sirens, no whistles or honking horns. No chatter in thirty languages or happy laughter or trucks unloading or bus brakes squealing.  Across the plaza, no one sits in the sun next to the torched tree stumps. Skyscrapers have crumbled as much as they ever will, the twisted I-beams and concrete clumps ten thousand monuments waiting for someone to remember. They will make perfect homes for any rats immune to radiation, but there may be no tenants for a thousand years. Stop signs blackened, but nothing to stop. Nothing moves in Manhattan.

Buyer's remorse

A writing exercise on the theme of buyer's remorse

Played for a Fool

Nineteen-sixty-four was a big year for me. I turned 21 just in time to register to vote, and of course I planned to cast my first vote for Lyndon Johnson. His opponent was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, whose slogan was “In your heart you know he’s right,” which his enemies countered with “In your guts you know he’s nuts.” The Democrats ran a TV ad showing a little girl plucking petals off a daisy –  three, two, one – followed by an image of a thermonuclear explosion. It ran only once, but it carried a devastating message: Barry Goldwater was a warmonger, unlike the incumbent. My vote was already a foregone conclusion when Johnson publicly vowed that he would never – no, not ever – send a single American boy to fight and die in Vietnam.

Goldwater never had a chance. I was proud to be part of the landslide of sanity that prevailed on Election Day 1964. President Johnson would surely find a way to keep us from sinking deeper into the quagmire of a foolish war.

And then in April 1965, the President – the one I helped elect – escalated American involvement. He said in a speech, “the infirmities of man are such that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of peace.” Translation: We have to kick Commie ass before we can talk sense into them. About to go into the military myself, I was furious with him. In my mind, Johnson had personally betrayed me. In the years to come, tens of thousands of Americans and untold numbers of Vietnamese would perish under Johnson and Nixon’s watches. Americans had been played for fools.

Silence

A writing exercise on the theme of silence

After

The air is calm today. Smoke is long gone, soot and dust long settled. No sirens, no whistles or honking horns. No chatter in thirty languages or happy laughter or trucks unloading or bus brakes squealing.  Across the plaza, no one sits in the sun next to the torched tree stumps. Skyscrapers have crumbled as much as they ever will, the twisted I-beams and concrete clumps ten thousand monuments waiting for someone to remember. They will make perfect homes for any rats immune to radiation, but there may be no tenants for a thousand years. Stop signs blackened, but nothing to stop. Nothing moves in Manhattan.

Love at First Sight

A short writing exercise on the theme of love at first sight

George

George, back in the day

George and Gracie joined us 11 years ago, twin purebred Bengal cats that tussled and slept and played and misbehaved and lit up our lives. In their early years they played fetch and leaped up on tall cabinets in single bounds. George loved to bring me leather sticks to toss from our bed, and he often somersaulted while trying to nab them in mid-air. But George had a genetic defect called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, which we soon learned would shorten his life. At about age seven he slowed noticeably, never even resisting when we gave him his medication. The jumping stopped completely, and he spent hours snuggling next to Gracie or curled up on Nancy’s lap. There were scary episodes involving late-night trips to the veterinarian followed by days of careful watching and TLC at home.

Then on Valentine’s Day, 2013, he collapsed and appeared near death. We rushed him to the vet, but nothing could be done. I looked into George’s eyes as the vet put him to sleep.

We were devastated, although Nancy held herself together better than I did. For over a week I moped until she said, “Let’s go down to Safe Haven,” the no-kill animal shelter. We looked at many cats of various ages, all so deserving of good homes, but we agreed we’d take only one. There was one older cat with an ugly face that looked like he’d been in some nasty fights – the poor fellow deserved a better life than he’d had so far, but we had to consider how he’d get on with our gentle Gracie, and decided that he wouldn’t.

Then we found a 10-month-old cat that had just given birth to a litter of eight. We entered their enclosure, and Nancy sat down. We wanted one from that litter, but which one? All were gray and white mixed-breed beauties, but most of them shied away from us.

And then one of them jumped into Nancy’s lap as if to say, “Here I am. Take me home.” She was mostly gray with a white breast and white feet.

Tina

“Her name is Socks,” the caretaker said. We took her home, deciding to call her Calcetines – Spanish for Socks. Almost as quickly, Calcetines became simply Tina.  Our immediate love for Tina didn’t diminish what we feel for Gracie and George.

They are all family, always including George.

Moving back East

Our house is emptying as we prepare for a 1700-mile move a week from today. We have lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico for most of a decade, and now we plan to move to a 55-plus community in the Tampa Bay area in Florida. So we've been selling, donating, recycling and discarding what feels like no end of stuff, much of which we once cared about. The rest, we'll let the movers pack for us. Still we fear we'll bring too much. That non-functioning laptop, that old tower PC, the old papers my mom held onto, the Southwest-themed rugs--time is running out to get rid of it all. We are moving into a smaller house on purpose so we'll be forced to thin and trim.

We all go through stages in life, with so many years of accumulating stuff, but now we are in the less-is-more stage. Time and each other's company trump material things now. Being alive and active, traveling, making friends are more important.

All of this is possible where we are, of course. But Tampa is closer to family and will be an exciting change of pace.

Anyway, this is some of what we are leaving behind:

A to Z Challenge: zenzizenzizenzic

Today we mark the end of the A to Z Challenge--whew! I've tried to dredge up uncommon words of dubious value. If you live in Seattle, you probably don't give a rat's patoot about xeriscaping, and if you don't play bridge or whist and haven't been a Green Beret, why would you ever care about a yarborough? 

Still, most of the words have at least some use to someone. So to bring the Challenge to an inglorious end, may I present zenzizenzizenzic, which refers to the eighth power of a number. Yes, really. Is there another word in English with more z's in it?

For example:

This is 2 to the 8th power, or 256. The zenzizenzizenzic of 2. Robert Recorde, who coined the word in the mid-1500s, wrote that it "doeth represent the square of squares squaredly." Eventually someone thought of the alternate word "cube," and it stuck. Go figure.

A to Z Challenge: yarborough

Here's a word that has several meanings. In Bridge, a yarborough is a hand with no cards higher than a nine:

A yarborough

Wikipedia says it's named after Charles Anderson Worsley, the second Earl of Yarborough and a member of Parliament back in the 1800s. The odds against being dealt a yarborough are said to be around 1828 to 1.

Yarborough also applies to a type of knife used by Green Berets.

A to Z Challenge: Xeriscaping

Anyone who lives in the Southwestern United States probably has at least heard of Xeriscaping if not practiced it. This is the practice of growing plants with minimal irrigation or none at all. The Greek root xer means dry, so this is dry landscaping. A yard with only desert plants such as cactus is said to be xeriscaped.

A xeriscaped yard with barrel cactus, yucca,
saguaro cactus, and desert flowers

A to Z Challenge: Wright

Tennessee Williams

We don't often see this word standing by itself, but it can cause confusion. A wright is one who makes or creates something, such as a millwright or a playwright. A person who is a play writer is not a playwrite, but a playwright -- one who creates plays. And although the legal protection is for what the playwright writes, it is not called a copywrite but a copyright.

Which leaves one wondering why if there is a playwright there isn't a wordwright instead of a wordsmith.

Playwright Edward Albee

A to Z Challenge: Velodrome

Now here is a word you might come across now and then, though it's been a while for me. A Velodrome is a building for indoor bicycle races. As to why it's not called a cyclodrome, I'll have to get back to you on that. Apparently there are plenty of them, and they have steeply banked tracks like the one at the left. Sorry to be a wimp, but that would scare the bejeezus out of me.

A to Z Challenge: Uxorious

Back in the day, we used to get mail from our bank addressed to Robert Sanchez et Ux. What is an ux, you may well ask? Why, it's the woman you're married to. Or it's you, if you are a married woman. It always seemed a rather demeaning reference to a woman, as though she were simply an attachment to a man. Has anyone seen that word lately? Not I.

Anyway, that brings me to uxorious, referring to the excessive fondness of one's wife. But what is excessive when it comes to loving one's wife? Maybe this cartoon illustrates.

A to Z Challenge: Tittle

We're back again with a post for the A to Z Challenge. Most readers will have come across the phrase "every jot and tittle," meaning every last tiny detail. Specifically, a tittle is the dot over the i or j, as in this illustration borrowed from the Web:

One of the earliest uses of the phrase appears to come from the King James Bible, Matthew 5:18: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

Incidentally, Tittle is also the last name of the great pro football player Y. A. Tittle, who quarterbacked for the Colts, the 49ers, and the Giants.