Good Food + Good Friends

I just enjoyed a very pleasant few hours with some good friends of ours. We ordered takeout from one of our favorite local restaurants so we were all free to relax and shoot the breeze. We have managed to see each other twice in about a month, which is helping to make up for the fact that we have been neighbors for nearly two years but have only really gotten together about six times total. We're working toward amending that glaring oversight. We already have a tentative date for our next meeting. We have known them for many years across several different states, so really we shouldn't be ignoring the fates that brought us near each other again. 

One of my grad school classmates brought an intriguing website to my attention. It's called Save the Words, run by Oxford (of English Dictionary fame). They have a plethora of words that have fallen out of common usage, complete with definitions and humorous example sentences, and encourage you to "adopt" a few of them (i.e., pledge to use them frequently in your everyday conversations). I am so geekily excited about this that I can't stand it. It is very difficult to choose my favorites, except for one: Hymnicide. Hymnicide, according to Oxford, is the killing of a hymn through alterations. I happen to belong to a rather progressive Christian church which saw fit to edit its hymnal to reflect gender-neutral language whenever possible, and at times I feel that they have committed hymnicide through doing that. Particularly when they want to avoid calling Jesus a "he." Um, guys? He was a guy. Anyway, check it out, it's a fun site to learn really random vocabulary, and if you're like me, that is truly an awesome way to spend some time. I should note that in the process of re-finding "hymnicide" in the jumble of words on the site, I ended up reading a bunch more of them for at least 10 minutes. It WILL suck you in, but it's educational!

Before I forget, there are some great Tanka submitted since my poetry challenge a few days ago; check them out here.

Haiku News

"White supremacist"

actually black dude who made

death threats on Facebook???

"Shara'a Simsim"

offers Palestinian

kids new role models.

Future pastor slapped

with three hundred hours of

service, probation.

Water bottles may

not have been the best method,

but why harsh rebuke?