Bits, pieces, flotsam, and detritus

A bit:

I thought this word was made up just for that commerical for something-or-another-that-I-can't-remember-right-now:

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floccinaucinihilipilification (FLOK-si-NO-si-NY-HIL-i-PIL-i-fi-KAY-shuhn)

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But, I guess not, because it is featured as today's "word of the day" from A Word A Day, which indicates that this very long word means to estimate something as worthless.

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As always, use it three times today in conversation and it's your forever. If you do manage this feat, won't you let me know how?

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Some flotsam:

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Question - do you ever avoid doing something that you know you should do just because you know how the something is going to to turn out and it's not going to be pretty and you'd just really rather pretend it will all go away if you ignore the not-pretty-ness for a while?

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I have a situation like that with someone with whom I must work. This someone has more initials after his name than me, which automatically makes him better than me (yes, he's one of those), and has proven to be a bit of a pain in the rumpus room of my reality.

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He wants me to call him. I'm not looking forward to the reason why. Therefore I write this blog entry. How lame is THAT?

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A piece:

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Early last fall, I took the boys for a hike at a local park. We tried and tried to find a nature trail, but this particular park is geared more toward the "pull in and picnic" population rather than the "hike and eat gorp" population. I don't begrudge anyone the right to picnic, of course, but I was lamenting the lack of hikeable area in thie big ol' park. We eventually found a wee trail BETWEEN picnic areas and decided to explore that option for as long as we could, in order to "get a little nature."

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And it was a wonderful decision to have made, because in that tiny patch of piney woods the spiders had been at work creating webs that caught the afternoon light and leaving behind long tails of silk that captured falling pine needles. The silks were invisible, so the effect was of suspended animation, as though gravity didn't apply and that, for a moment, the senesced needles could bask in the sun one last time before making contact with the strange dark earth. They swayed on their silks when the breeze blew, and for a long time we watched them do their silent improbable dance in the quiet plot of land that had been their entire home and life.

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We counted a few dozen of these terpsichoren pine chats as we made our way along the short picnic trail, and with each one counted I thanked the good fortune that brought us to that place at that time, because for those moments, we shared wonder and amazement.

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Detritus:

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Right now, I work on the second floor of a 2-floor building. Above my head (on the roof, y'all) is some kind of metal flap-doodle thingie that must be an inlet for the A/C system or something. The flap-doodle thingie does it's flap-doodling all day long in the heat of a NC late-spring day, and it's irritating the living SNOT out of me, because the flapping and doodling are inconsistent in rhythm and intensity.

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It is the modern equivalent of the ol' Chinese water torture, and it's working.