When asked whether or not my 19 year old Autistic son was able make his own lunch, like an excellent Master of a servant, he replied, “I’m good at letting my mom do it.”
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
I have a best friend who, if you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know goes by the name of John (mostly because that’s his name) but I’ve thought about changing it. I already have, on occasion.
John is a fan of making sound effects. I don’t know if he really realizes he’s doing it, but often when he sits down across from me at my kitchen table he says “plonk” as his butt comes in contact with the chair. So I’ve started calling him Batman.
I wonder sometimes about my seeming obsession with grammar. Where some people may hear a “sound effect” when someone does what my BFF does, I identify it with onomatopoeia. Does that equal obsession? Or is it simply because I’m in the throes of editing that it’s with me constantly? I can tell you, it’s killing me that I’m not able to edit this.
My concentration is shot – Alex’s friend just came over to play video games. With the sound on. (Normally I don’t have to listen to movies, shows, and games since Alex is Deaf – his friend is hearing.) So my world is full of sound effects. Whoopie!
Edit: Find the artist who created the image on this fridge magnet here: http://deloresart.blogspot.ca/
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
I have memories as a child of preparing breakfast, with my father’s help, to bring to my mother in bed on Mother’s Day. I knew as well as he did that it would be no surprise, but we pretended, he and I. I remember a few odd gifts I gave her over the years, but the one that stands out the most was a garbage bag full of well-fermented horse shit I brought home in my car from the ranch where I worked. Her roses loved it and yet she still rolls her eyes over it.
As a new mother myself, my very first Mother’s Day was a revelation. Being pampered by my son’s father was a dream come true. Those beginning years were special indeed – breakfast in bed was mine, although sometimes those breakfasts were inedible having been made with love by my young children. I grinned and did my best to eat them without gagging anyway.
Today I find the cycle has changed once again. I made the coffee last night so Alex, my youngest, could come downstairs ahead of me and push the button to start the coffeemaker. I’m in the not-so-unique position of being single, having my three sons at home, and soon I will be picking my own mother up to spend the day caring for her, though she’d never concede to the idea that it’s the other way around. She wants me to depend on her and I’m okay with that. It’s like a dance, graceful in its complexity with me agreeing to almost anything and her… I’m not sure if she still understands that I’m doing it or not, but the grand act of denial, if that’s what she does, is Oscar-worthy. And of course there are my own children. To an extent my eldest is taking care of me, helping me not to pull my hair out both with his physical aid in babysitting and housework and his awesome sense of humour.
So it goes. The child becomes the mother, the caregiver; the giver of life as she comes closer to the end of her own, becomes dependent once again.
I love being a mother, but in the end it can be likened to a bag of horse shit. For the amount of work it takes, the load of stress that accompanies it, and the headache-inducing number of eyerolls, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
I’ve heard the word “verity” before but it’s not one I was familiar with. But what a wonderful word it is! According to my thesaurus it’s a noun, synonymous with actuality, authenticity, truth, and truthfulness, among a few others. Here’s the link to the dictionary definition: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verity
Verity, as it turns out, is a huge factor in my life. I strive to live as authentically as I can. I’m not one who has ever seen the point in telling untruths – they serve no one from what I can see. Another of the synonyms is “validity.” How can one verify the validity of an untruth? Okay sure, the occasional white lie so as not to hurt someone is an exception, but things like telling people that I’ve done something in the past that I actually haven’t done; sure I’ve been bungee jumping! I’ve even jumped out of a plane! No. Just no. I have had enough adventures and experiences without making any up. (Just to clarify, I have never, nor will I ever jump off anything high enough to warrant safety equipment. Eighteen inches is plenty, thanks. And even then, I’m afraid of straining an ankle.)
Not that I’m judging people who do create their own adventures in their minds. I’m sure they have their reasons; I understand the desire to impress someone I’m meeting for the first time. I suppose for me part of it is the fear of being caught out in a lie. That’s an awful feeling, isn’t it? I remember, vaguely, the first and only time I lied to someone to impress them. I was a child at the time, maybe around eight years of age. I felt guilty immediately and vowed never to do it again.
There are many ways to live with verity apart from being truthful to others. Being true to one’s own nature is another. I found that having a friend–a manipulative, narcissistic friend–who once upon a time convinced me to do things and act in ways that were against my true nature was one of the darkest times in my life. I began to not trust myself–my own feelings and my authentic actions–and I did things that simply weren’t me. Thank goodness I’m away from such an influence now.
In the story that is our lives, verity is a great thing to have and to hold on to, not just for ourselves but for the people around us and especially our children. How do you strive for verity in your life?
It’s so much fun to be silly sometimes, isn’t it? Daft. I love the word, “daft.” It’s the third synonym of the list in my thesaurus. It conjures the image of Daffy Duck with his aweththome liththp and having his head blown upside down by a shotgun. It’s incomprehensible to me how they can sensor Bugs Bunny, and yet when I read it here it sorta makes sense.
But I didn’t grow up violent because I watched Loony Toons. The coyote never made me want to mail-order in a few sticks of TNT to blow up a bird. (I used to feel so sorry for the coyote. Especially when he put up that tiny umbrella just before a gigantic boulder landed on him.) I’m glad some of those old shows still exist though.
I often write absurd scenes, like the one on my fiction blog last night: click it. You know you want to. But I’m trying to think of the last time I actually did something silly when I was alone. Like skipping down the sidewalk instead of walking. Mostly I do these things with Alex. My neighbours must think I’m crazy sometimes, dancing in my kitchen or screaming back at him for fun. I know I get some strange looks when I make faces at him as we stroll through the mall. But these are my real pleasures in life. Being a kid again. Or at least acting like one. It’s very freeing.
Well that worked out well. I don’t think I need to take a picture of my thesaurus this week to prove that “journalist” is in fact the second-last word on the left-hand page that I turned to… you trust me, right?
Honesty in journalism is something that’s apparently hard to come by these days. I don’t often listen to or read the news. I wish I had less going on in my life that I had the luxury to put other people’s and countries’ business closer to the top of my priority list, but it just ain’t happenin’. My mother was recently diagnosed with ‘mixed dementia’ which includes a touch of Alzheimer’s, and though I haven’t even properly researched what that means, I have been led to understand that the difference between dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease is attitude. Let’s just say she hasn’t been easy to deal with these past few years and it seems to be getting worse by the day. While she hasn’t displayed any of the outbursts you sometimes hear about, nor has she gone wandering (thank goodness) but I’m finding myself agreeing to being the stupid one (her term) more often than not to avoid arguments. I really do need to learn more about this disease.
So where was I? Oh yes, journalists. I can’t imagine myself as a journalist. I can’t interview someone to save my life, and I’m afraid that any reporting I did would end up more speculation and fiction than actual true story. I tend toward writing fiction – my imagination is probably one of the most prevalent parts of my personality.
Let’s see what synonyms we have here: hack. Yeah, that’d be me. Chronicler. Sounds painful. Oh Oh OH! Periodicalist! I like that word, though my spell check doesn’t. Let’s try using it in a sentence.
The periodicalist was found guilty of dangling participles. His sentence; to be reviewed…
Up until now, the word “forefather” has always seemed a little redundant to me. Of course after I turned to it in my thesaurus as my word of the day, I looked it up to get a little more insight on what exactly it means, but in the past I was all like, “of course it’s a FOREfather. Can’t really be an AFTERfather, can it? Dad has to come first unless someone’s discovered the secret to time travel – and going down that road is just ewww…” *thinks of that episode of Futurama in which Fry discovers he’s his own grandfather* But now I’ve discovered it means every papa that came before dear ol’ dad it makes a little more sense.
I’ve never been much into family trees. I know I came from somewhere and while it would be nice to know whether or not I descend from royalty (my kids’ behaviour sometimes indicates that I actually may), since it doesn’t much help me one way or another I don’t really care enough to go delving. I understand there are cultures that are way into knowing where they come from and I think that’s very cool. Information like that, passed down through generations and not having to be discovered from scratch would be quite useful at times. Then again, finding out your predecessor was a dirty rotten scoundrel might be equally as disconcerting.
Before I sign off on this post I really REALLY have to mention one of the synonyms I found for “forefather.” I’m going to start using it any chance I get – it’s so cool. Ready?
PRIMOGENITOR
Seriously! Doesn’t it sound like some sort of awesome Transformer! Imagine, traveling back in time and meeting up with this ginormous dude made of space-aged plastic who bends down, and roars in a heavy, digitally enhanced bass, “I AM YOUR PRIMOGENITOR,” (with emphasis on the OR) and then picks you up and starts bouncing you on his knee.
As you probably know, my words for this A-Z Challenge are coming at random from my thesaurus. I’m absolutely committed to sticking to the rule I set for myself to take whatever word I open the book to that is the second from the bottom on the left-hand page. This will not, by the way, apply to the letters X and Y and Z- there aren’t enough pages for those letters. But I digress. My main concern today for the letter C was one particular entry that just happens to be the second-last letter in the left hand column on page 104:
Yes, this could have been the word of the day. It was with a grimace and a prayer to the word gods of the planet Thesauri that I gingerly parted the pages of my big red book and believe me, it was with a sigh of relief that I discovered I wouldn’t have to talk about cocks. Luck was on my side; I landed instead on page 108 and the word “commit.”
I think to a certain extent we all have things that we’re compulsive over. One of my biggest compulsions is that I must stick to a commitment. I may even be worse–more determined–with the commitments I make to myself, though I’m pretty fierce when it comes to doing whatever I promised someone else I’d do. Which is why it just about kills me when I can’t keep up with these challenges I set for myself.
One of the synonyms for “commit” is “imprison.” I do, in a way, imprison myself when I dedicate myself to something. I box myself in but that’s really not all that bad. For an unemployed (at least in a 9-5 sense) woman, structure isn’t something my days are filled with. Yes, I have to get up when the rooster crows (see what I did there?) for my kids, and I have to be here when they come home, but what of the space in between when they’re at school? A commitment to something consigns me to a task. In the case of this particular commitment–blogging–you, my friends, are my overseers.
I wouldn’t let us down unless under duress.
What, apart from your family and your job are you committed to? And how far would you go to honour your commitment? I’d love to know.
Don’t you hate it when you go into a store and the displays are set up so that the aisles are barely wide enough to get your cart through? And God forbid you should have a double stroller with two toddlers! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to back out of the narrow corridor that makes up the cereal section or worse, the cookies I just barely got my kids past in the first place.
I don’t understand why retailers can’t grasp the concept that shoppers are more likely to knock over their little cardboard shelving units than buy something off them. We don’t see the products on them – what we see are obstacles!
The above is my off-the-cuff response to my word of the day, found at random in my thesaurus on the left-hand, chosen-at-random page under “A”, second word from the bottom. I have, however, learned something new from this exercise.
One of the synonyms under the word “aisle” is the word “ambulatory.” As someone who has spent a great deal of time in hospitals, I’ve often heard the word in medical terms, as an adjective meaning to be able to walk or get around under one’s own steam. But apparently, used as a noun, it also means “a place to walk.”
Who knew?
Armed with this new knowledge, you can be sure the manager at my local grocery store will hear about it the next time he sticks an obstruction in the middle of the damned ambulatory.
Clean up in ambulatory two! Lady no longer ambulatory!
lindaghill.com 