Cyberspatialniche

Lately I’ve been hearing from friends that I use a lot of BIG WORDS, or that such-and-such a word is the WORD OF THE DAY. Is it just me, or does anyone else not usually like to admit to not knowing a word in such a way. I’m not saying I won’t ask what a word means if its truly alien to me, but does anyone else out there try to work stuff out through context or, heaven forbid, look it up?

I do love to read, so I guess a pleasant side-effect of that love is building up a decently diverse vocabulary. One danger I’ve found, at least with the contextual approach, is the decently large chance that you’ll guess wrong and them be stuck with either a usefully vague understanding or a dead-on incorrect definition. Patrick’s recent vocab quizzes for his students pointed this out in some words I thought I knew.

Overall, I guess I just see my lack of knowledge as an embarassment and not something to trumpet to others for the sake of a funny moment. Insecure? You betcha. I do work with programmers, after all. The world has never known such an amazingly literal bunch, often to our own detriment. Well, maybe the Pharisees. And the more evangelical/orthodox followers of certain religions.

Word of the Day – Metaphor.

This is just a quick announcement that today is Patrick and my 8th anniversary together. Congratulations will be accepted throughout the week.

Christmas is always such a hectic, manic experience, and this year proved no exception. We drove down to Jupiter on Christmas Eve to visit with my father, and afterwards made it to my mother’s new place to stay the night. Jeff and Heather this year followed suit, which was a good change from previous years where we’ve seem to pass each other at different times and locations. Both families were fun to visit with, and other than the driving provided for a relaxing Christmas Eve/Christmas morning.

Then it was back up north to Patrick’s grandparents new place to visit with his family, which thankfully all gather together at one location! Patrick’s family, as always, was entertaining to say the least. The present-opening alone was a site to behold, with shards of wrapping paper flying about and a lengthy cacauphony of squeels and explanations.

Fortunately there was no blood-shed or feelings hurt, and everyone seemed to enjoy their gifts. The family was particularly pleased at Patrick and Nancy’s home-made gifts of tree-skirts, quilts, and hand-bags, as well they should! Its one thing to give of money, but quite another to give of money, time, and creative energy. I know I’ll treasure my two pairs of pajama bottoms!

Patrick and I finally made it back to our castle, where we opened stockings. We had already exchanged gifts on the night before Christmas Eve, but this proved to be a pleasant and relaxing way to cap off Christmas. Particularly exciting in my stocking was the discovery of a bottle of curry ketchup, a treat which can typically be found in German restraunts. Though I’ve enjoyed everything that I’ve been given this Christmas season, this one simple gift has stolen the show. At least until it runs out, which will probably be in a few days at my current rate of consumption.

Lastly, we come to the incident of the cell phone, which I mention because it was just too insane and tragic to leave out. Paulo, a friend of my brothers, was visiting last night with his room-mate Chris, on their way up from South Florida to their base in Georgia. Both will be serving our country with distinction soon in Iraq, and I of course wish them the best of fortune. Having said that, I gladly laughed my ass off at Paulo’s misfortune with his cell phone.

After getting lost driving to our house for what must have been the third time, he decided to park next to the storm drain in front of our house. Then, when he got out of his car, his cell phone detached from its hook and fell right down the storm drain. At first, we thought it might be salvagable by opening up the manhole cover and fishing it out, but once we succeeded at opening up the cover, we realized how lost his phone had become.

I’m sure all of you can imagine the utter horror you’d feel if something like your wallet or cell phone fell into a pit of water, muck, and refuse. Yet because it happened to Paulo, and because he was a good sport about, we all had a good laugh. The moral of the story? Laugh when bad stuff happens and buy insurance on your cell phone. Oh and try some curry ketchup.