Week in Seven Words #571

This covers the week of 12/27/20 - 1/2/21.

advisory

As New Year's Day approaches, Duolingo is telling me something: "Fais plus de sport!"

aurora

I look over her shoulder at the computer game she's playing, Heroine's Quest, and I'm enchanted by its artistry. In one scene, the player character goes ice fishing at night against a backdrop of Northern Lights.

fairyland

In the field, a hollow has filled with rain, and it looks magical in the gray light.

glazed

The stalls at the holiday market look like bright glass cubes. Most of them sell warm food, like apple cider donuts, or they display art, jewelry, and pretty knickknacks.

propping

Some of the paintings crackle with life. Others are weak, supported mostly by the jargon in their captions.

quarantine

Thankfully, they're feeling better, but they're still quarantined, their viruses mingling pleasantly.

strains

Musicians try to pump some cheer into lackluster people. Not enough people for a crowd, and still too many businesses closed.

Week in Seven Words #483

appreciative
I need to see each day as a jewel that has landed in my palm.

avian
They've hung up bird feeders in one part of the woods. It's a bird plaza now with restaurants and chatter and excited cries. Squirrels try to intrude, while humans mostly keep a respectful distance, observing this avian culture with its own languages and customs.

birthday
A park ranger looks out over the formal garden and breaks into a smile when she spots two young men, her grandsons. "Happy birthday!" they call out, and she laughs as they hug her. Nothing could top a surprise visit from her grandsons on her birthday. They lead her down a path. Behind a mass of shrubs, a dozen other family members are waiting for her with balloons, cake, and gifts.

dress
In one garden, the ranks of daffodils and tulips look like pageant contestants; their gowns are creamy and crisp, pink and white and yellow. In another garden, the tulips are at a party, in disordered swirls of color at sunset.

egret
Close to dusk, an egret with a neck like a question mark poses on a flat rock.

juicy
Savoring a pear on a walk after dark past store windows with lurid sci-fi displays.

magically
When it barks, the dog sounds like a sea gull. A goose stands on a stone fringed with small blue flowers. A child in pink taffeta tears down an avenue of pink blossoming trees. I'm in a fairy tale.

Week in Seven Words #212 & 213

212

confinement
A young tree strait-jacketed by ice.

contorted
In black and white film: the grace of a ballerina and the grip of polio.

engulfed
A snow drift has swallowed up another small business.

fluffy
Sinking a fork into a marble chocolate cheesecake.

outsourcing
It's scary when you realize how much other people have staked their happiness on you, convincing you along the way that you're responsible for their moods.

tribunal
This is the dynamic at the table: there are those who can do no wrong, those who can do nothing right, and those who are judged right or wrong without consistency, based on how their hair looks at a given moment or on what shirt they picked out to wear.

untouched
Sometimes at a restaurant the best moment is when the food just arrives. It looks delicious. At that moment, you think there can be nothing wrong with it.

NYC Window-Shopping Walk: Columbus Circle to 5th Avenue to Greenwich Village

This past Thursday, the temperatures peaked in the high 40s, maybe low 50s (Fahrenheit), which is practically a heat wave considering what the winter's been like. Good weather for a walk.

It starts in Columbus Circle.


Walk south to 57th, and then head east, past Carnegie Hall and the Russian Tea Room:


And an antique shop offering wares that look enchanted or cursed: