Week in Seven Words #567

This covers the week of 11/29/20 – 12/5/20.

crusty

The basin has been drained. It's encrusted in dirt and leaves like diseased skin.

diving

Wake up in a low, grubby mood. Getting to work immediately helps.

radiance

I love the tree that's still bright yellow, a flame awaiting winter with confidence.

reversal

Waisting, sleeting – two seven-letter words, both last minute, that win her the game.

spying

A drone hovers outside the window. Is it filming us? Where is this boundary-wrecking insectile contraption from?

stomping

They stomp around on a lawn caked in wet fallen leaves. They're ecstatic at the crunching, the crumpling.

wafting

Sometimes, what connects people in these socially distanced times, is the smell of Frosted Coconut Snowball hand sanitizer.

Week in Seven Words #466

contending
She's giving an outdoor talk, and her voice strives to rise above the wind.

context
I bump into someone I know quite well in a location where I don't expect to see him. For a couple of seconds I don't recognize who he is, because his face is usually framed by other surroundings – not a street with a church on one side and glossy, sparkling storefronts on the other.

interval
Late at night, the subway platform fills with people waiting for an infrequent train. They look up from their phones, crane forward to peer into the tunnel, sigh, look back at their phones.

melted
The Camperdown elm looks like it has melted. Its branches are rivulets of brown wax.

parting
We murmur how we'll see each other soon, but we probably won't. Our friendship has weakened in the last year or two, not for any one reason, or really any obvious reason.

rose-tinted
Someone plays "La Vie en Rose" on a saxophone under an archway. They're striving to create a certain atmosphere – romantic, nostalgic, Parisian – on a muddy day.

soothingly
Ginger and carrot soup to soothe what might be the beginnings of a cold.

Week in Seven Words #347

fanfare
She arrives late to the concert and trills apologies, her arms flung wide for balance, as she walks crabwise down half a row to her seat.

pastry
The chocolate rugelach they bring out isn't dry and flaky. The chocolate is seeping deliciously into the dough.

realized
She transformed a secondary character from a stock figure to a person.

residence
She makes a Lego version of me, a princess with glasses and a crown, and installs me in a two-story, two-room house with a rooftop observatory and the necessities - a tree, a book, a bar of gold, a hairbrush, and a cape.

unblinking
In the back of the pickup truck, he keeps a stuffed animal basset hound that stands guard over his gear.

upbeat
A day of feeling down ends on a bright note, as if a curtain's been brushed aside, thanks to a good dinner with some good people.

waggle
He's a few decades older than they are, so he flirts with them in a paternal way, one leg propped on the seat next to theirs, his elbow on his knee as he leans forward to explain the world to them and give them little compliments. They smile at him politely until his wife reappears.

Week in Seven Words #283

disengage
She walks ahead of the rest of us, and I understand the mood she's in - restless, unwilling to talk, needing to feel like she's floating free.

dump
Between the chainlink fence and the water is a zone of discarded objects: a pink Disney princess balloon, a bike wheel, green bottles and a soccer ball.

lava
Volcanic colors of sunset over small gray buildings.

lurch
An email I expected arrives. Even though I sensed that something like it was coming, it's no less disappointing.

scalpels
Skyscrapers like silver blades cutting into the night.

squandering
Half an hour gets sucked away on a TV show where people make petty, poorly thought out decisions and end their night drunk and brawling.

watercraft
We walk past the yachts in the marina and marvel at their features, like the hot tubs and lounge chairs. "Which one is yours?" she asks, grinning. I tell her that mine isn't a yacht. It's a leaky rowboat. The amenities include a bucket to bail out water.