Tag Archives: Pink

Blush

Blush: (v) to develop a pink tinge in the face from embarrassment or shame.

Dictionary B

Removing one misconception from the stacked-up views of a human being may temporarily topple the tower but will make the rebuilding more sturdy.

We are full of misconceptions.

Matter of fact, we feel compelled to lie to one another so as to remove all sense of embarrassment, shame or inadequacy.

So the singer who is loud and boisterous is never told that he’s off-pitch.

The beauty queen who is painted to excess to gain approval is never informed of how obnoxious she is.

And the politician is never surrounded by those who will truly ask the right questions.

We are afraid of embarrassment.

We are frightened that our weaknesses will surface, so we smother self-awareness under an ocean of flattery.

Sometimes I need to blush.

  • I need to realize I have said something inappropriate.
  • I have fallen short of expectation.
  • I am a bow-tie worn with a jogging suit.

It’s good for me.

It literally puts some color in my cheeks. 

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Andrews, Julie

dictionary with letter A

Andrews, Julie: (1935 – ) English actress and singer born Julia Elizabeth Wells. She is best known for the movies Mary Poppins (1964), for which she won an Academy Award, and The Sound of Music (1965).

Progressors.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are people who arrive at just the right time in history to do just the right thing, to progress things at just the right pace. Without them, nothing happens–and if they were any more progressive, they would have scared everybody away.

There are many examples, but certainly, Julie Andrews falls into this category.

For I will tell you, if Julie Andrews arrived on the scene today, she would be rejected for her sprightly personality, her clarity of singing and portrayed as a lightweight.

But at the time she arrived with her talent, there was a need for hope, inspiration and music sung with the purity of a nightingale and the intensity of a roaring lion.

She was a treasure. And because she worked very hard at making sure she maintained her excellence, her work endures.

Oh, we may think that “a spoon full of sugar” doesn’t “make the medicine go down,” or that the hills aren’t “alive with the sound of music,” but her infectious desire to bring good cheer to the listener is very difficult to criticize or ignore.

Now, there is a problem when we become nostalgic and insist that we need Julie Andrews back.

We don’t need another Julie Andrews–we need the next Julie Andrews to progress us in our consciousness. We need talented folks who bring hope in their own way, clarity using their own voice, and inspiration sensitive to their own times.

Without Julie Andrews, there never would have been a Barbra Streisand, and without Streisand there never would have been Heart with the Wilson sisters or Fleetwood Mac with Stevie Nicks, and without them, there would not have been Celine Dion, Beyoncé and Pink.

We need progressors.

And what is the goal for making this place called Earth better?

Anybody who promotes the idea that we are human … and that is not a bad thing.

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Abysmal

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abysmal: (adj.) extremely bad; appalling

I was always glad it was pink. I think there’s something nice about it being pink. Blue would be weird. Certainly not green. I guess yellow would have been a possibility.

I’m talking about Pepto-abysmal.

I took it as a kid. Somewhere along the line in my childhood–about eight years of age–my parents made the transition from the old-time use of castor oil to Pepto-abysmal. Now caster oil tasted like what I imagine licking tar off of hot pavement on a summer day would be like.

Horrible.

And for some reason, they wanted you to drink it straight down, which always led to gagging and sometimes throwing up, which would convince your parents that the stuff worked, because you would feel better after vomiting, and caster oil would get the props for the cure.

I was so glad when Pepto-abysmal made its introduction.

Am I weird? I kind of liked the stuff. Matter of fact, every once in a while I would go to the medicine cabinet and take a swig. (You had to be careful, because it would leave a tell-tale pink chalk residue on your lips–a little difficult to explain to your over-scrutinizing mother why you’re “hitting the pink stuff.”)

I think my mother once gave me Pepto-abysmal because I had a headache. For a season it was the magic cure–so common in the average household that they developed this big quart-sized version. It was huge.

But if there was something aggravating, dastardly or nasty stirring in your gut, Pepto was well-prepared to go down there and do battle. My mother was convinced that she saved the life of my young nephew, who had an appendicitis attack, by giving him Pepto-abysmal. She insisted  that when they removed the appendix, they found it encased in a pink fluid. Being a kid, I never realized this was impossible. And it further increased the mystique of the magical fluid.

Now I’m not stupid–I know that it’s really Pepto-Bismol, but I thought it was cute to call it Pepto–abysmal, considering that it takes care of things–gut-wrenching things–that are abysmal.

If you didn’t find it cute, I am sorry. Maybe you need to be “Pepto’d up.”

Abominable

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abominable: adj. causing moral revulsion.

What did the Snowman ever do to you?

Why did he end up being Abominable?

Did I miss some news story on Inside Edition? Was the big Snowman caught in bed with Madonna or Pink? Is he doing cocaine in the snow? Is he killing off people in the woods?

Why is the Abominable Snowman considered abominable? What breach in morality causes us to find him revolting?

This is not fair. Just because you’re nine feet tall, are covered with hair in the frigid Yukon, growling at strangers, does not mean you lack the moral fiber to be a damned good Republican.

Is it just that everybody who does not fit the “normal” size, look or social presentation have to be scrutinized until we discover some hidden sin yet uncovered?

I, for one, think it’s time that we stop calling him, her or it abominable. I think “big and ugly” would be better than abominable, don’t you?

I am concerned that moral judgments are being made about a creature we actually know very little about. For that matter, we’re not even sure he exists.

Of course, in our present political climate, we seem to be very good at creating problems out of nothing. So who knows? Maybe there’s a reporter somewhere from some sort of tell-it-all rag who has been following this monstrous creature around and knows that he has nasty inclinations.

Yet that doesn’t stop us from having priests in the Catholic Church. It doesn’t eliminate politicians cavorting with prostitutes. We don’t call THEM abominable.

No, it is a word reserved for the Snowman.

And speaking of that, it reminds me of the reporter who once caught up with the self-assesssed, famous adventurer, Scarsland de Barkel, winner of the First Annual Coveted Explorer’s Award, and asked him, “Mr. de Barkel, have you found the Abominable Snowman?”

Scarsland replied, “Not Yeti.”