Nom de Plume

The thing you have to understand about Harry is that if it’s not one thing, it’s another. We seem to lurch from condition to condition. The moment one seems to be resolved, poof! there’s another. Over the summer, he poked the middle of his eyeball. Then, in the fall, he developed monstrous lip warts. In early winter, his eyeball puffed up again, and now his tummy is completely bald and the vet said he probably has food allergies.

Food allergies. See what I mean?

The big condition, of course, is the hydrocephalus. I should mention that I have completely weaned him off the prednisone, and he’s like his puppy self again — feisty and energetic. He is no longer a little stoned lump on a log. Plus, many people have commented on his new svelte figure.

Which is even more svelte because his hair is thinning.

So this morning, I hopped online to see about hypoallergenic dog food. Single source protein and carbs, all the sites say. Then, I started reading all the ingredients of dog food. All I can say is that it’s frightening. I had never really thought about it before. I mean, we feed cows corn to get rid of surplus grain and then put them on meds to help them stomach food they shouldn’t be eating in the first place. We have mad cow disease because we were feeding rendered sheep to cattle. The list goes on and on. And it extends to our furry (or not so furry as the case may be) little critters. Those innocent little squares of doggie kibble are just plain scary.

And thus begins my descent into freaky pug ownership: I am cooking for the dog now.

He’s having turkey, potatoes, and carrots for dinner.

A word that describes me is …
Grumpy.

My favorite word is …
Cunctation. Because it sounds like it’s dirty, but it’s not. Also because it’s obsolete, so it makes me feel smart. (It means a delay.)

My least favorite word is …
Classy. Let’s face it, if you have to describe something as classy, it’s probably not.

Use the two words in a sentence …
When her date finally appeared toward the end of Act II, he excused his extreme cunctation by explaining that he had to buy a classy suit.

A word I always have to think twice about pronouncing is …
Manure. My mother always said matyoor for mature, so I always want to say manyoor. And that just doesn’t sound right.

Dictionaries … printed or online?
I have a gazillion dictionaries, but still tend to use dictionary.com.

A word whose meaning I cannot seem to retain no matter how many times I look it up …
Bathos. Admittedly, one doesn’t come across bathos very often, but whenever I hear/read “pathos,” I remind myself to look up bathos for the umpteenth time.

Open a dictionary to a random page and find a word you don’t know. Post the word and the definition.
facinorous: atrociously wicked

Use the new word and the word you can never remember in a sentence.
Despite the vampire’s attempts to look facinorous, he only succeeded as a bathetic figure.

One of the most overused in my area of work/study is …
Leverage. God, I hate that word. Impact (as a verb) is a close second.