Week in Seven Words #544

This covers the week of 6/21/20 - 6/27/20.

covidiot

Now a regular part of our vocabulary.

pillowing

The geese are fat brown pillows softening a rocky slope. 

pinetum

Picnic tables, mulch paths, and rail fences. The scent of pine trees, heavy and delicious.

reluctance

The dog is slow to warm up to the stranger but then reluctant to leave. He begins to welcome the goodness of those pats and scritches just as his owner starts tugging him away.

standout

Among the many colors in the garden, the loveliest is the cerulean of the hydrangeas.

summoning

With only a slice of bread, a young boy brings a frothing mass of turtles to the side of the pond.

sunset

The sunset shifts colors. At one point, a bar of bright blue appears among duskier blues and oranges. The underside of the clouds are blushing.

Week in Seven Words #537

This covers the week of 5/3/20 - 5/9/20.

blocked

On our walk, we head to an art museum in the hopes of seeing into it from the outside. From what I remember, it has some large windows. We find them shuttered.

converging

Multiple sources of stress converge into a tension headache.

permute

Our walks are limited to a relatively small radius, so we're getting inventive about places to visit, new combinations of paths to take.

ripping

A rending wind pushes us down the street. It sends up a swirl of litter. The tulips are half bald, the cherry blossoms cast to the ground.

springtime

Clean air and the colors of tulips and azaleas. One path is pink with fallen cherry blossoms, a lush carpet that will soon get trampled into the mud.

unreadable

The large turtle is very still, as if it's one with the rock formation on which it's sunning. The stillness of the moment breaks with the noise of an airplane. It's writing something across the crisp blue sky, but the letters are too blurry to read.

zeroing

Police hand out citations to people who aren't wearing masks.

Week in Seven Words #480

betrayal
More schools handing out high grades based on low standards. They lull students into a complacency that's shattered by failed statewide exams.

dirt
The fierce wind blows dirt into our eyes. The dirt is loose because nothing has been planted yet. Only a few stringy weeds have claimed the soil.

do-si-do
We're stumbling through the steps for completing the square, as if we're in a clumsy mathematical square dance with no feel for the music. Just going through the motions.

duck
A duck puffing and rustling with deep blue in its wings, looking like an agitated decorative pillow.

glares
She urges me to admire the chandelier, to contemplate its intricate beauty, but it's blazing, and my eyes hurt.

together
People gather in the park to fish, share a blanket, feel fresh air, catch at a friendship that's slipping away.

turtle
A turtle on a rock, its head tilted up as if it's scenting the weather.

Week in Seven Words #430

canine
An impromptu playdate for a couple of dogs. One of them shivers on his owner's lap. The other is a little rocket of a dog, testing the limits of his leash. They sniff at each other for several minutes.

cheering
I receive a book by mail from a friend. She calls me inimitable.

degraded
The problem with these political conversations isn't the agreement or disagreement. The problem is that conceding anything or introducing nuance is considered a personal defeat and a betrayal of "your side." The assumption underlying each conversation is that you're aren't going to achieve a greater understanding. It's that you're going to do everything to destroy the other person, and that includes relying on underhanded tactics such as misrepresentation. Don't listen closely or think too much, just attack.

formations
Rocks are mounted up the sides of the reservoir, with ducks squashed into the crannies, their heads tucked into their backs. Pods of turtles blend in with the rock.

grouping
With peony robes and flickering fans, the girls rehearse a dance show at the foot of the hill.

mineraloid
Magnolia blossoms, before they open, look like mineral formations.

sprouted
From the soil of the first draft, a second draft has emerged. It's thin and in some places sickly, but shows promise of fuller color and foliage.

Week in Seven Words #344

felicity
A German couple who have just gotten married in NYC have an impromptu first dance by the lake in Central Park. A performance artist who has been playing guitar all afternoon sings "Can't Help Falling in Love," and a small crowd of passersby from the city and around the world join in as the couple slow-dances.

flavorful
A square of bitter dark chocolate dissolving.

gobble
Turtles bob towards the shelf of rock where people have scattered crumbs and chunks of fruit.

meliorate
A book, a bench, clean air among trees.

overthrow
The statue of a sword-wielding king on horseback has been toppled. This could be taken as a sign of political upheaval, but really the monarch is undergoing restoration and will soon be righted.

redefine
He portrays her volatile behavior as normal. This is one way he copes with it and accepts it as part of his life.

undisclosed
It's been months since I've heard from her, and I'm both worried and relieved.

Week in Seven Words #222 & 223

222

disconnect
A couple in the park: Man and woman strolling, he pontificates, gestures broadly, makes authoritative pronouncements about things he only half-knows at best, while the woman nods, murmurs, surreptitiously checks her phone.

faerie
The enchantment of pink blossoms floating around your head.

patchy
Blonde willows and raggedy weeds by the pond.

pistons
I understand the enjoyment people get from running, but not from jogging. Running can give you a feeling of freeness. Jogging has always struck me as mechanical, like you're a machine pumping up and down.

shocked
The park is artificial, so the lakes can be drained or filled at will. The fish might be stunned out of their habitual routes and find themselves on their sides, eyeing a terrible sun.

tableau
Facing north, heads uplifted, four turtles frozen on a sunny rock.

treble
And there he is again: The half-naked man, kneeling in the tunnel and playing the violin.

Week in Seven Words #161 - Grand Cayman edition

botanic
Sore with sunburn, we seek the shade of the color garden with its wall of trees and shrubs, its tiny darting lizards and tropical flowers.

cock-a-doodle-doo
The free parking lot in Georgetown, by the harbor, is a grassy lot where roosters strut around, pecking at the dirt, dodging the occasional car, and crowing their hearts out.

cocktails
At the poolside, everyone is pleasantly soused.

cruising
The public bus is a van, but there's room for everyone who wants to get on. There are some bus stops along the route, but the driver will stop anywhere if you flag him down. He listens to the same rapid, unending, unchanging music that plays everywhere else on the island and that sounds better when you've had a drink. When people pay him, he keeps the cash clutched in his fist, even as he drives.

cyclurids
After trundling along for some time with its head bobbing aggressively, the large blue iguana settles right in the middle of the path, in a patch of shadow cast by an overhanging tree. It stares at us dispassionately, not realizing that it's blocking our way. We could step over it, or maybe try to slip around it. Blue iguanas are herbivores, and they rarely bite people. But why take a chance? So after several minutes spent staring at it as it stares at us, we turn around and head back. Humans, with all the force of our intelligence, foiled by a lizard seeking a little shade.

immersed
For the first time in years, I swim in the ocean. The water feels like silk. When I look down at my hands, they're green and white. Waves spill over my back.

respire
The labored breaths of sea turtles coming up for air.

Week in Seven Words #122

atmospheric
At the cafe we sit right by the huge open windows, and cool air rolls over us as the storm starts up. We breathe deeply and peacefully until I wonder aloud if lightning can come in through open windows. (Chances of that are small, very small, but it's not impossible...)

exhale
It's lovely when a subway car suddenly disgorges all if its passengers, and you're no longer standing with your nose in someone's hair line.

indolent
Turtles loll in the shallows nom-nom-nomming on leaves.

inviting
Tulips on a table laid out in rich blue paper.

lightened
Springtime in the synagogue, flowers twined around the room.

preschool
They sing "Baby Beluga" with looks of rapt innocent concentration. They're little people who can barely sit still, love to give hugs, and know the words to songs about donkeys, wheels on buses, saying good-bye and the deep blue sea.

venturesome
The bug making its slow patient way across my ceiling is an explorer of sorts, mapping out an ocean of space. Even as I stand there waiting for it with an old textbook and a bottle of Windex, I can respect its intrepid spirit.

Turtles on fallen trees

In the comments for the Week in Seven Words #111, I was asked about the turtles clinging to the branch - how many and what size?

Here are a few photos. The turtles were in different groups on branches or slender tree trunks that had sunk into the lake in Central Park, NYC.







And here's another cute branch-climber I spotted:

Week in Seven Words #111

de novo
Pockets of purple crocuses on a bare meadow. The first whisper of pink in the trees.

disclose
I don't like to think of the path as a dead-end, because it brings me to a place that's very much alive, full of sunlight on rocks and the slosh and smell of lake water.

idyllic
On a warm winter day he sits bare-legged by the lake and types on his laptop.

outgrowth
The turtles clinging to the fallen branch look like fat brown buds.

strewing
She doesn't keep anything she draws, whether it's abstract shapes or an absent-minded lady or a generous bouquet of flowers. She signs her name on the drawings and leaves them on the table when she's done. This time she gives me one of them as a gift; the rest can be marveled over or binned.

thaumaturgy
In the azalea pond the fish swim in the reflections of trees.

unsociable
In the reading room the austere portraits don't look at you; they pretend you're not there.