Wednesday's Word

Gaucherie / goh-shuh-REE / noun
1. A socially awkward or tactless act.
2. Lack of tact; boorishness; awkwardness.

If you find yourself sitting next to an obviously prosperous guest at a dinner party and your host introduces him (it will be a him) as a "successful barrister", you will be guilty of a gaucherie of the crassest kind if you exclaim: "How fascinating! If I promise not to call you Rumpole, will you tell me about your goriest murder trials?"
-- Nick Cohen, "Don't leave justice to the judges", New Statesmen, December 13, 1999

Here we see the insecure, unattractive woman who at long last has found someone even more insecure and unattractive than herself, calling attention to her companion's gaucherie in order to feel, for once in her life, like the belle of the ball.
-- Florence King, "Out and About", National Review, November 9, 1998

50th Birthday Surprise

My mom's 50th birthday is on Tuesday, and we can't let a celebration like that go by without a party. So, my aunts and I have been plotting.... er... planning a surprise party for her. We knew she wouldn't appreciate a bunch of "Over the Hill" stuff or having a ton of people here, so we kept it festive and within the family. A bunch of our family members had some other plans, so we had a relatively small group.

I told my mom that since we're sorta broke right now, to come over and we'd have a nice dinner here for her birthday. So, she came over with the assumption that her, my brother, sister, Drew, and I were going to have dinner. She even brought some steaks and pork chops for us to grill. This video shows just how surprised she was. She had no idea!!

Success!!!! She was so shocked!

Family!!
Make a wish! I'm sure that she's already plotting getting us all back!
Here is my cousin, Matt, and his girlfriend, Sheena. They haven't been dating too long, but we love Sheena to pieces. And Matt is so happy with her! And she works in the NICU at a local hospital. I wish that we could speed up their dating time so they could hurry up and get married. My sister is so gorgeous!

My brother and I. He cut his hair and I am so happy about it.

11 Months

I just keep saying to myself (and everybody else for that matter), "I can't believe that we're a month away from our one year anniversary". I remember that at this time a month ago, we were having our bachelor and bachelorette parties. I was ready to jump out of my skin with excitement over our shrinking countdown.

Drew is in charge of our plans for our anniversary. I told myself that I wasn't going to bug him about it and try to find out what we're doing. I guess you'll just have to wait along with me!

Wednesday's Word

Eldritch / EL-drich / adjective
Strange; unearthly; weird; eerie.

In the eldritch light of evening in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, the eye plays tricks on the brain.
-- Thom Stark, "Something's Burning", Boardwatch, November 2000

The immitigable mountains and their stark, eldritch trees; coasts where earth abruptly snapped off, never to be continued, or beaches which gnawed it to bright dust and sucked it gently away. . .
-- Carolyn Kizer, "A Childhood South of Nowhere", New York Times, April 9, 1989

They're Gonna Cut Me Open

I went back to my doctor here in town last Thursday, the 10th, for a follow-up ultrasound after our appointment in Madison. They did another ultrasound to check the size of the cysts. The ultrasound room at my doctor has a screen that Drew and I can watch while the ultrasound is happening. I like this. A lot!! And since this was my third one, I could actually tell what the ultrasound tech was looking at.

So, she's looking around, and I can spot my cervix, and my ovaries, and I see the cysts that we already know are there. And there we see this thing. This weird looking thing that kinda resembles a tampon. At first I was mortified, wondering if I screwed up somewhere. That probably wouldn't be a good thing. Then, after realizing that I couldn't have made that mistake, we look at it a little more closely and it kinda floats.

The ultrasound tech said, "I've never seen anything like that."

What? What do you mean you've never seen anything like that? That's not the right answer!

"Um, what do you mean? What do you think it could be?", I calmly ask.

"Well, look, it kind of floats when I push against it. Look." ::Push, push::

Ok, that's enough of that! Quit playing with my organs please and thank you.

"Um, yeah, that kinda hurts."

Not exactly the kind of conversation I expected to have with the ultrasound tech. And that "thing" has shown up since my last ultrasound. Weird.

We met with the doctor again and she said that she thought it might be scar tissue, but she's not certain. She also says that it now looks like both of my tubes are blocked. (Before it was just my left one.) Then she tells me that she wants to do a laparoscopy so that she can go in and take a look at things. I asked her why the other doctor in Madison didn't even see my tube being blocked and she just said that he specializes in cancer, not infertility. Do I buy that? I'm not sure. But all I know is that I'm really lost as to who to believe.

Drew and I tossed around what to do for a couple days. We got two very conflicting opinions from different doctors. We wondered if we should try to find another doctor here in town and see what they suggested. At the end of the day, we (or I really) have decided to just go ahead with the surgery. My doctor said that she's going to go in and look around, clean up any scar tissue she can, and hopes to leave everything else alone. She doesn't want to take anything if she doesn't have to. That's a relief to me! I hope that she'll be able to fix whatever is going on with me.

The surgery scheduler finally called me on Friday, but I wasn't able to answer my phone. Of course, when I called her back, she was away from her desk. I left a message and her voicemail said that all messages would be returned same day. All except mine apparently, because she never called me back. Hopefully she'll call me back tomorrow and I can find out when we can get this show on the road.

Wednesday's Word

Logorrhea / law-guh-REE-uh / noun
1. Pathologically incoherent, repetitious speech.
2. Incessant or compulsive talkativeness; wearisome volubility.

By his own measure, he is a man of many contradictions, beginning with the fact that he is famous as a listener but suffers from "a touch of logorrhea." He is so voluble that one wonders how his subjects get a word in edgewise.
-- Mel Gussow, "Listener, Talker, Now Literary Lion: It's Official.", New York Times, June 17, 1997

It's also not good if your date has logorrhea.
-- Monte Williams, "8 Minutes in the Life of a Jewish Single: Not Attracted? Next!", New York Times, March 5, 2000

Mr. King, who possesses an enviable superabundance of imagination, suffers from a less enviable logorrhea.
-- Michele Slung, "Scare Tactics.", New York Times, May 10, 1981

Busy Weekend

We had such a busy weekend, I was in heaven! Friday night, Drew and I went over to Josh and Angie's house after I got off of work for a game night. Josh is a big gamer and has spent every time we hang out trying to convince me to play whatever game they're playing. I usually refuse because I would so rather play Super Nintendo than the new gaming systems. I gave in on Friday night and played Rock Band for the first time. I had such a good time! We didn't stay long because both Drew and I had to be up early the next morning.

Saturday, Drew woke up early to go play in a softball tournament with his cousin. Who is a firefighter. A tournament with all firefighters. Yep, I'm sad that I missed that eye candy! I worked all morning. Once Drew got home, he was starving so we decided to try out Bino's for dinner. Bino's is a restaurant that is about two blocks away from our house that people have just raved over. I was less than impressed. It was extremely warm in there, the waitress wasn't that good, and it took forever to get our food. The food was pretty good so I'm sure we'll go back. Drew and I came back to the house and we kept tossing around what we were going to do for the night. His guy friends were going to a Casino Night at someone's house, but Drew didn't really want to stay out late since he hadn't gotten that much sleep the night before and he had to get up early in the morning for work. He decided to stay home and go to sleep and I went over to Nicole's and hung out with her and Amanda. It was nice to sit with the girls and spend the evening chatting. We definitely need to get our girl's night going again.

Sunday, Drew worked all day, so I did some grocery shopping and chores. We went back over to Josh and Angie's house for the Bear's game. I was so stoked for the game. Cutler looked so good during pre-season; where the heck did our quarterback go? 4 interceptions in one game!!! Unreal!!

It was so nice to spend the weekend with friends.

Wednesday's Word

Malapropism / mal-uh-PROP-iz-uhm / noun
1. An act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp. by the confusion of words that are similar in sound.
2. An example of such misuse.

At 15, Rachel, the whiny would-be beauty queen who "cares for naught but appearances," can think only of what she misses: the five-day deodorant pads she forgot to bring, flush toilets, maching-washed clothes and other things, as she says with her willful gift for malapropism, that she has taken "for granite."
-- Michiko Kakutani, "The Poisonwood Bible': A Family a Heart of Darkness", New York Times, October 16, 1998

He also had, as a former colleague puts it, "a photogenic memory"--a malapropism that captures his gift for the social side of life, his Clintonian ability to remember names of countless people he has met only briefly.
-- Eric Pooley and S.C. Gwynne, "How George Got His Groove", Time, June 21, 1999

Its success may be unusual, but brunt force is hardly the only malapropism pushing its way into our lexicon.
-- Jan Freeman, "CYCLING; Crashes Jolt the Standings, And Oust a Tour Favorite", Boston Globe, April 13, 2008

Non Labor Day

Today was absolutely gorgeous outside! The whole weekend was beautiful. I, however, spent Saturday afternoon, evening, and all day Sunday parked on the couch. Yep, that's right, I was sick again. I got those annoying stomach pains and, this time, they made me very sick. I actually ended up throwing up. Right after I had eaten. I will probably never eat a Sour Cream and Onion potato chip again. Uggghhh, I can't even think about it!!!

So, after spending a day and a half bored out of my mind watching tv, I really, really wanted to go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather that we had been given. After Drew shook off his hangover, (He played in a large online poker tournament last night and drank about 15 beers during the 5 or so hours that he played. He wasn't feeling very great this morning and his first words to me were, "Babe, I really need you to get me some McDonald's please".) we decided to go fishing and walking around a forest preserve that is close to our house.

First, we went fishing at the forest preserve that is behind our house. I didn't have any luck and quickly grew bored. I even tried singing a little song to the fishies. They weren't biting. Drew caught a fish though!

Drew lost his second lure, so we decided to leave and go to another forest preserve that is across the street from our house. We are so lucky to live so close to so much beautiful nature. I told Drew that we should get a big group of our friends together and go play softball at a field that they have there.

Drew and I decided to run to the grocery store and grab something to grill for dinner. We had a fantastic dinner of grilled chicken legs and pasta salad. Such a great way to end the weekend. I hope that you all had a great Labor Day weekend. What did you do?

Wednesday's Word

Abecedarian / ay-bee-see-DAIR-ee-uhn / noun
1. One who is learning the alphabet; hence, a beginner.
2. One engaged in teaching the alphabet.
3. Pertaining to the letters of the alphabet.
4. Arranged alphabetically.
5. Rudimentary; elementary.

Columba's poem is fittingly 'abecedarian', each stanza starts with a subsequent letter of the alphabet -- a harbinger of the Scottish appetite for cataloguing, and delight in craft.
-- WN Herbert, "A rhyme and a prayer", Scotland on Sunday, December 10, 2000

While much of the work resembled abecedarian attempts of a novice choreographer, "Duet," sensitively danced by Jennifer A. Cooper and William Petroni, is surprisingly sophisticated in its careful deployment of formal thematic manipulations in the service of emotional expression.
-- Lisa Jo Sagolla, "Open 24 Hours Dance Company", Back Stage, September 1, 1998

The approach may seem abecedarian today, but his was among the first endeavors of the sort.
-- Jennifer Liese, "May 1973", ArtForum, May 2003