Week in Seven Words #534

This covers the week of 4/12/20 - 4/18/20.

clustered

It's a cold damp day. Blossoms are still thick on some of the trees.

control

One triumph: resisting a temptation.

frazzled

In the middle of worrying, I do something that creates more worries. I'm fed up with myself.

sleuthing

Reading Sherlock Holmes stories is relaxing.

stamping

Running round my mind are all kinds of catastrophic possibilities. They're making a well-trodden path with loops.

tinnily

Phone calls with long wait times. The music that plays in a loop while I'm on hold is the week's soundtrack.

unhurriedly

Appreciating a quieter day – some delicious food, a few colorful notebooks, and good conversation.

Week in Seven Words #482

miscommunication
Phone calls yielding false information, corrections, sarcasm from rude receptionists, repetition (what's your date of birth? what's your insurance?).

nibbling
Throughout the afternoon, I enjoy samples of the food she's prepared.

opulence
A silvery waterfall in a marble lobby. The tap-tap of heels, the squeak of leather shoes.

peaceable
I enjoy singing with them. I enjoy his jokes. We walk back on a cool, windy night.

scene
Some of the characters: A chatty widow with a chin that looks like a weedy garden; another woman, quiet and carefully put together, wearing creamy makeup and eating her cake with quick, tidy bites; a young man propelled by wine and joy to dance at the end of the meal with two other men, their shirts crawling out of their pants, their faces flushed.

services
Going to a different type of synagogue. I notice what's been truncated in the service and omitted deliberately or carelessly. I also notice the atmosphere of geniality, welcome, and compassion.

stuck
She prays for people who are feeling stuck. I close my eyes, hearing this prayer.

Week in Seven Words #317

digs
It's an old-timey lobby with wood paneling, cubbyholes for mail, and a brass call bell at the front desk. I expect to see men lounging around in homburgs and high-wasted trousers.

gleam
The corridor has a triangular glass roof. Beyond it are roosting birds and gray sky. Lamplight reflects off the metalwork.

indefinitely
Mirrors extend the front hall infinitely. The doorman sends us up to where the old man lives on every last drop of his fixed income.

limited
By mashing buttons, I score a slam-dunk in video game basketball. When in doubt, mash the buttons. Something will happen. I try it again, making a shot across the full length of the court. I wish I could say it goes in.

relic
I stare at the payphone as if it's prehistoric. My friend comes up behind me and says, "You can... call people on this?"

shibboleth
With the slogan, he identifies his tribe and takes a mental shortcut. The conversation ends.

webbing
Pushing through to the other side of tiredness to finish a project on time.

Week in Seven Words #255

anticipatory
He'll ask you a question he thinks you can't answer. As you pause to think, he'll line up the first words of his lecture. Don't disappoint him by knowing the answer.

gravelly
Her voice comes at me in puffs and crackles from hundreds of miles away.

minacious
Not for a minute do I buy into his kindly Kris Kringle routine. There's a knife's edge to his smile, the glint of a blade.

ping-pong
They leave their office doors open so they can banter across the hallway.

reckoning
As the elevator takes us down, she crouches in a corner, her arms wrapped around her knees, and watches the numbers with solemn attention.

shuffling
It's a dystopian scene, the gray crowds removing shoes and belts before filing through the metal detectors.

testy
As they give him advice, he turns his cellphone over and over on the table, his leg shuddering up and down. From time to time, he starts to say something - to defend himself or make himself look more experienced than he is - but they talk over him, and he subsides into a disgruntled silence.

Put down the phone!!

Week in Seven Words #167

derelict
She drinks from a dirty glass and eats tongue between slices of old brown bread.

disagreeable
Music from the IRS hotline tinkles in my ear, as I try to write while on hold.

gambits
The blankets are rumpled and strewn with pie dishes and tin trays. People stand around talking and sizing each other up. Every conversation I'm a part of seems to involve a game that I don't want to play.

needs
The sky growls thunder and hisses a promise of rain. Still, we must stop for frozen yogurt.

two-sided
Depending on who you ask in the room, the dog is an adorable treasure or, at best, a nuisance.

whoop
Discovering that I need to fill out a five-page tax form that comes with at least 50 pages of instructions.

whoopee
Along with the five-page form, there's another form. And another. There are always more forms.

Week in Seven Words #137

confab
Two elderly wheelchair-bound ladies sit side by side in an elevator. One reaches over to the other, clasps her hand, and says, "Your hair is white." A pause, before the other replies, "I haven't been in the sun for so long." They lapse into silence.

danseuses
Little girls in a ballet class, spinning, spinning, stumbling, one of them picking her nose as she twirls.

gastric
He wrinkles his nose at the pink frosting on the cupcakes. I tell him the color doesn't matter because once it's in his stomach it's going to look like the pizza he just ate.

irrelevance
Phone static swallows up most of what he's telling me. The only thing I can make out is his reference to I Love Lucy.

pixieish
She's half-pixie, bangs her head on the table, smiles, clutches my hand, wants a co-conspirator in mischief and song.

sheltering
Do any of them think of this as their safe place? It has a warren of bookshelves and desks, a lounge, a little room with computers, and no windows looking out onto the outside world.

unpredictable
A local train turns express, sweeping me off to a stop I didn't intend to go to.