Dictionary

/dik-shuh-ner-ee/

A

lphabet n. She is a precocious three-year-old.  She knows all the letters and what they say.  “What does ‘cat’ start with?”  “C,” she declares, and runs to “look it up” in the old encyclopedia on the bottom shelf.

B

utterfingers n.  Consistently dropping things, pain shooting up to my shoulder.  When I finally see a doctor he sends electricity from fingertips to forearm.  He says the nerves are blocked; I need a ligament clipped before the nerves completely die.  When I come out of surgery, the incision hurts less than the blocked nerve did.  I don’t bother to fill my painkiller prescription.

C

artoon n. Mel Blanc (1908-1989) performed the voices of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Pepe le Pew, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, and Daffy Duck.  He died in 1989, leaving a generation of cartoons speechless. 

D

ead adj. Dusty, dried roses hang from a hook in the corner of the ceiling.  They crumble under the touch even of housefly wings.  They are left over from a funeral, and no one can bear to throw them away.  A spider made his home in them once, but even the cobweb is dry and dusty now, the spider is long gone.  Sometimes red and lavender petals fall to the floor, and get swept up with the dog hair. 

E

volution n. Coke began as a medicinal concoction of cocaine and caffeine and sugar.  Early addicts must have felt fantastically energetic and productive.  It evolved from there into Coke, New Coke, and Coke Classic.  I depend on Diet Coke to get through my day.

F

ashion n. I hear compliments often about how I always look pulled together, dressed up, and fashionable.  I will tell you my secret: throw on a blazer.  That’s it.  That’s the whole secret.  A blazer turns any top and any pants into an outfit in one easy step.

G

ood adj. Good food.  Good kids.  Good sex.  Good education.  Good book.  Good movie.  Good student.  Good teacher.  Good dog.  Good day.  Good twin.  Good grief.  Good business.  Good game.  Good music.  Good loser. 

H

ungry adj. I met him on an internet dating site, and agreed to have dinner with him.  He stole my lobster off my plate and ate it.  I ate salad and breadsticks and went home hungry.  I vowed never to go on a blind date again.  My friends refer to him as “Lobster Boy.”

I

mpressionism n. Perhaps Claude Monet was actually a realist, seeing through nearsighted eyes the vague shapes and colors of distance.  His paintings inspired a movement of nearsighted artists, all painting the world in soft focus, as they saw it. 

J

oke n. I only know one good joke.  It is in American Sign Language, and makes no sense in English.  There is no written form of ASL, so I cannot tell my joke here.

K

issing v. When the boys started school, they stopped allowing goodnight kisses from me.  Kisses embarrassed them, made them look uncool, like mama’s boys.  Still little boys, they needed affection as much as they avoided it.  Still a mom, I needed affection from my little boys.  Their dad and I discovered a way to kiss them goodnight that let them look cool anyway.  We kissed our fingertips, and tapped the tops of their heads, passing kisses from lips to hands to heads.  As they grew older, the tap grew stronger—never strong enough to damage, but enough to make them laugh and keep from crossing the tenderness limit.  One of the boys laughingly avoided the tap, so we would wrestle him to the ground, giggling and shouting, at bedtime every night, trapping his hands and forcing a kiss/tap on the top of his head. 

L

ove v. A teenage couple sits on my loveseat, fighting to trap each other’s thumbs in a battle that makes them both laugh.  If she succeeds and captures his thumb, she declares a victory for herself.  If he wins, she rules the game a mismatch, and demands a rematch.  By this point system, she wins every time.  His advantages of size and strength are nothing in the face of her big blue eyes.  He loses, but he loses with good cheer because he gets to sit with a pretty girl on the loveseat.

M

yopia n. And God said, “Let glasses be invented,” and Ben Franklin invented them.  And God said, “Let soft contacts be invented,” and Otto Wichterle invented them.  Every morning I put my glasses on, or I put contacts in my eyes, and God and I both see that it is good.

N

o adv. When our granddaughter was two, and behaving like a typical terrible two-year-old, her mother asked if she ever threw temper tantrums at our house.  We were puzzled.  We never told her “no.”  What on earth would she throw a temper tantrum about?

O

mnivorous adj.  I will read anything with words, from the meaty Jeffrey Eugenides to the whipped fluff of James Patterson.  I will even read the back of a shampoo bottle since books get ruined in the shower.

P

arenting n.      Me: “Will you do my homework for me?”

                        Son: “If I do it you won’t learn anything.”

                                    How long has he been waiting to say that to me?

Q

uasi adj.  All of the nominal power of a university resides in the president’s office.  The real power flows in the classrooms and halls, with students and professors working in concert to change minds, change methods, change the world.

R

elease v. My baby will grow up, become an adult, move out of my house.

I will let him go, unwillingly because he is my baby.  It will be the end of an era.

I will cry at my empty nest.

I will wish for his babyhood.

I will wander aimlessly through my clean, quiet house, remembering the fingerprints on furniture and walls (and footprints on the ceiling. don’t ask).

He will have children, and they will come, and I will feed them cookies and let them put dirty fingers on the coffee table, and tell them how their father got footprints on the ceiling.

And I will laugh when they try it at home.

S

platter v. My granddaughter drops her water cup, murky brown from rinsing her paintbrush in it.  My kitchen wall now looks like a splatter painting by Jackson Pollock.  She giggles and wants to splash more paint on the wall.  Maybe I should have her sign my wall with one of her markers.

T

hought n. As I sit in meditation, I notice thoughts rise and fall in no particular pattern: only vague impressions of ideas remain in the ridges of the gray matter in my brain.  Sometimes the ideas are good, but I never remember them clearly.

U

vula n.  What is that little hangy-down thingy in the back of my mouth?

V

illain n. Fantasy novels make everything very clear.  The good guys display every virtue, and no vices.  The bad guys, usually in positions of power, slaughter and imprison innocents by the dozen.  Fantasy makes perfect escape literature, showing the world in stark relief of black and white, with no complicated grayscale.  Would that real life were so easy.

W

ar n.  I have two sons in the Army.  They volunteered to risk life and limb for the freedom of people around the world.  Military moms beam with pride at the honor and courage of our sons, but we worry, a lot.

X

-ray n.  Dr. Seuss says, “X is always for ‘x-ray’”  I would not dream of proving the good doctor wrong.

Y

es adv.  Will you marry me?  Am I pregnant?  Will this hurt?  Is there a cure?  Are you mad at me?  Can we get a dog?  Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?  Have you found Jesus?  Would you like to dance?

Z

apper n.  The spring air whispers softly through the newly leafed trees.  The night smells of lilacs and apple blossoms.  The only sound is the occasional sizzle of a dying moth.