Tag Archives: words from dictionary

Acapulco

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acapulco: a port and resort in southern Mexico on the Pacific coast; pop. 592,290, full name Acapulco de Juarez.

Since I don’t drink, gamble, have a beautiful body like a Greek god or enjoy dancing in the night life of an exotic resort, places like Acapulco never really drew my attention nor any of my interest. The things that would be of value to me, like the sunshine, water and some good Mexican food, are really available in my neighborhood.

It’s not that I am a curmudgeon who hates to be around crowds of people because I think they are dark and evil or different and weird. It’s that early on I discovered my own level of contentment and toleration for variation–and I love to stay within those parameters lest I find myself spending a lot of money doing things I don’t really want to do anyway, pretending they are the coolest thing that’s ever happened.

I don’t like to be overwhelmed by entertainment. So for me, going to a carnival which is set up in a shopping center parking lot, eating a corn dog, and trying to knock over a few milk bottles with a light-weight ball as I watch children use their tickets to ride on a rickety roller coaster is just as much fun as going to Disney World.

You see, I think there’s a danger in over-stunning our senses with innumerable sources of stimulation all at the same time, without having the opportunity to take in individual bonuses because we are so inundated.

I know I am alone in this.

But I’ve never wanted to be jaded by convincing myself that the only way I can have fun and sun is by going to Acapulco instead of stepping into my back yard with a pitcher of iced tea, a good book and some great music to listen to on a wonderfully sun-drenched afternoon.

It’s not that I’m simple–it’s just that I have five senses and I really don’t want to jam them up, so that they’re running around colliding into each other, vying for attention.

Stop for a moment and taste the iced tea. U-m-m-m. It’s good. Now, put your head back and let the sun warm your face. Excellent.

The one time I found myself at a resort like Acapulco I couldn’t get a moment’s rest or a chance for an idea to stretch its legs, because all the young cabana people were constantly walking up and asking me if I wanted to go deep-sea fishing, sight-seeing, hand-gliding or rollerblading.

I felt bad when I told them “absolutely not.” I wondered if they lost commission because I appeared to be out of commission. After that I decided to avoid such fruitless journeys, and instead, chose to tantalize my sense one at a time.

So you may go to Acapulco and you can even send me pictures.

I think I will just stop off at Taco Bell, pick up a couple burritos, sit in the sun, jot some notes down on a piece of paper, and after I become hot enough, dip the better parts of my body in some cool water.

That’s what I call … a vacation.

A cappella

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

A cappella: (adj. or adv.) {with regard to choral music} without instrumental accompaniment.

I was sixteen years old and had a musical group. We thought we were great, which is the necessary profile to maintaining the immaturity of being sixteen years of age. We had recently won a talent contest at our school, so we were over-pumped with our abilities and found other people’s instruction repugnant.

A gentleman asked us if we would like to record the song we had sung at the talent contest for his local radio station, to be played the following Sunday for the vast “tens of listeners” tuning in.

Of course, we agreed, fully aware of how fortunate this man was to have such a talented group of young people coming in to his little station to share their unique abilities. We arrived at the studio and found that there was no piano. We required one, so it seemed like we were stumped, with no recourse. The radio station owner ran from the room and quickly returned, holding in his hand–a pitch-pipe.

He said, “Why don’t you sing it a cappella, and I’ll give you the note to start on, and we can record it?”

Well, we had never sung our song without accompaniment, but after all, being the best singers in Delaware County, it seemed like something we could take in stride and accomplish with no difficulty whatsoever.

So he blew a C on his pitch-pipe and we began to sing, as he recorded. We struggled a bit. None of us realized how dependent we were on the strands flowing from the keyboard for our sense of self-confidence. Yet we persevered.

When we reached the end of the song, I looked over and noticed that our recording engineer had a grimace on his face. He paused and said, “Would you like to try that again?”

Fully inflated with arrogance, I replied, “Why? It sounded good to me.”

So he blew the pitch-pipe and played back the last note we sang, and explained that we had fallen a full tone in the process of singing our song. Still fueled with immaturity and impudence, I said, “What difference does it make–as long as we ended up together?”

I added, “Perhaps your pitch-pipe is broken.”

This last assertion was quickly disproven when he played back the entire recording and it became obvious where we lost our way. Yet because we were young, impetuous and just damned lazy, we refused to record it again, insisting that “it sounded fine.”

Faithful to his word, he played our a cappella version the following Sunday morning on the radio, and amazingly enough, no one commented to us about it–good or bad.

That was the day that I gained great respect for singing a cappella–and also for the value of honoring the pitch.

In all facets of life, if you don’t stay in key, you will end up with a whole lot of sour notes.

Acalculia

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acalculia: {n.} loss of the ability to perform simple arithmetic calculations, typically resulting from disease or injury of the parietal lobe of the brain.

Bob, Frank and I decided to go out for an evening.

The four of us came to the quick conclusion that if we left at seven o’clock and closed the evening out at twelve, we could have six hours of enjoyment.

You might think it odd, but we began the excursion by picking up a dozen doughnuts and splitting them evenly among the four of us–five each.

We went out and bought a pizza, which cost twenty dollars, and split it, which remarkably, was only six dollars a person.

At the end of the night, we realized we should reimburse the gas in Bob’s car, so we bought gasoline at $3.48 a gallon, putting ten dollars in the tank, giving us seven gallons.

We had such a good time that we decided to do it every week. So it was concluded that five days from that time, we would get together again, and Bob, Frank and I–all four of us–would go out from seven to twelve (for six hours), probably buying that dozen doughnuts, granting us five each, to spend no more than ten dollars of gas, which would provide seven gallons.

Everything seemed to be going along real well until the second week, when for some inexplicable reason, we found ourselves arguing … because things just didn’t add up.

 

Acajou

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acajou: {n.} 1. the wood of certain tropical timber-yielding trees, esp. mahogany 2. another term for cashew.

I’m not so sure I could identify mahogany if I saw it. Some sort of dark wood, normally associated with affluence. I don’t know why.

I DO know what cashews are.

Now most people would not think that cashews and mahogany have a whole lot in common, although I must admit, it would be wonderful to have a coffee table made out of cashews, offering a practical snack on the spot. But I don’t think it would be possible to break mahogany into little chunks, placing it into tin cans to offer as a part of a meal which began with soup and ended with nuts.

But since they share a common name the message that rings through to me is that we are much better off in life looking for similarities than we are focusing on differences.

In other words, if I stand in front of a group of people and say, “Mahogany and cashews are really different, aren’t they?” everybody would agree and soon we would be onto other topics with very little enlightenment, and also with me not coming across as very creative or intuitive.

But if’ I am able to find union between mahogany and cashews, then I have done something of quality, linking my world together instead of emphasizing the chasms between ideas.

  • How is a Republican like a Democrat?
  • How is a liberal like a conservative?
  • How is a Christian like a worldly person?
  • How is a woman like a man?

These are the kinds of questions that bring us together instead of tearing us apart.

Mahogany is considered to be a very expensive and durable wood. Cashews are the King of the Nuts, and even though the title does not sound particularly honorable, it does carry its own weight and flavor. So as I discover that mahogany and cashews do share the same name in this particular dictionary definition, I feel juiced up by the project of finding the similarities in their characters.

You can feel free to divide your world into smaller and smaller boxes until you’ve littered your closet with a whole series of unmarked packages.

Not me. I want to throw away the boxes and see if this thing we call human passage isn’t just a puzzle, trying to fit the pieces together … instead of tearing them apart.

Acadia

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acadia: a former French colony established in 1604 in the territory that now forms Nova Scotia in Canada. Contested by France and Britain, it was ceded to Britain in 1763, and French Acadians were deported to other parts of North America, especially Louisiana.

There is so much in that definition of Acadia which is bizarre and imbalanced–but still–quite human.

Let’s start out by saying that the Acadians were living in Nova Scotia, which translated, means New Scotland. So already they were presumptuously dwelling under the false concept that they were still in Scotland–just opening a branch. No one in Scotland wanted them. That’s why they were starting from scratch.

So then the arriving British decide THEY don’t like them. They send them to the great trash heap of all English rejects–America. These Acadians go from one community to another, and finally settle in the sediment of the Mississippi Delta–in Louisiana. The only other place left for them to go was the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s just difficult to build a cabin there.

To the credit of these former New Scotland folk, they decide not to be so picky and intermarried with the Louisiana natives, some of them being Creole. They blend, they blur, they mingle, they mix–until one day we end up with Cajuns.

And these Cajuns, who were rejected by Scotland, the British and all sorts of little, prissy towns all the way down the Mississippi River, ended up taking the best of their surroundings and creating one of the more colorful cultures on the face of the earth.

Without them we have no gumbo, jambalaya, and it would be questionable if New Orleans would be so deliciously flamboyant.

So just as my ancestors were rejected from Germany and landed on the shores of the New World, looking for a place to breathe and live free of condemnation, we need to understand that everybody who lives in America was once a reject, floated down a river or two and plopped in a place where they could be free … and pursue their dreams. Never in the history of mankind has such a clumping of losers turned into such a winning formula–making a little, crawling crustacean called the crayfish into a magnificent mini-lobster treat.

 

AC

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

AC: (abbr):

 

You see, here’s how I heard the story;

This guy was on his way to do AC 360–that’s with Anderson Cooper–and they called him and canceled because the AC (air conditioning) was out in the studio. The guy asked them what they thought was causing the problem and the producer replied, “It has something to do with the AC.”

The guy said, “I know that. It’s the air conditioner.”

The producer said, “No, it’s the AC. The alternating current.”

The guy was so upset about not being able to do the show that he went down to the local AC (athletic club) and started lifting some weights. In doing so, he pulled a muscle in his AC (I think that’s somewhere in the knee.)

He went to the hospital and the doctor was a bit baffled by the injury, saying that the calamity did not usually befall anyone unless they were a gladiator in the Roman coliseum, AC (before the birth of Christ).

The fellow wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, puffed up to have a gladiatorial injury, but on the other hand, he felt that it was AC (all so common).

While sitting in the Emergency Room waiting to be discharged, lo and behold, AC came through the door–Anderson Cooper. Actually he was wheeled in on a gurney and appeared to be in some pain. Rushing up to the gurney, the gentleman asked what was wrong, and AC explained that he was working on the AC in the studio when the AC started working again and sent a shock through his whole body and threw him across the room. So he had to call an AC (ambulance carrier) to get him to the hospital to check out his AC–(all corners).

In a strange sort of way, the man felt justified about being canceled from the AC show because of faulty AC when he discovered that if he had gone TO the AC Show the AC might have shocked him.

So he went home, called his girlfriend, and told her that he had a gladiator’s injury that hadn’t been seen in the hospital since AC–before Christ.

She was confused. Actually she was AC (always confused).

Abzug

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abzug: Bella (1920-98) U.S. politician, lawyer and women’s rights activist. She helped to found Women Strike for Peace in 1961. Serving in Congress as a Democrat from New York, she fought for the rights of women and the poor.

Sometimes progress is so slow that we actually fail to notice that it’s going on. It is the short-sighted part of the human race that often makes us unsuitable for either the jungle or the boardroom.

But when I thought about Bella Abzug, fond memories returned. She was not exactly what you would call an attractive woman. Generous folks would have referred to her as “handsome,” and less gratuitous comments could have included “homely.”

I am certainly glad she was not around for this 24-hour news cycle, where her appearance would have been ridiculed in an attempt to render her words ineffective. That’s what we do nowadays, you know. When we are unable to contradict the objections of an intelligent spirit which has stormed into our presence, we make the attacks personal so as to dismiss their effectiveness by pointing out their physical oddities.

No, I am sure Bella Abzug would have been joked about as the classic lesbian, or mocked as someone’s “ugly grandmother.”

Often it takes people like Bella to come along to plant the seeds of discontent in order for some weeds of frustration to grow up in the midst of our neat little “social garden,” and bring attention to the fact that not everybody is going to be a “cute tomato.”

We need her. We actually need MORE like her.

I, for one, am sick and tired of only listening to people I’m supposed to agree with, who make sure that their language is so sterile that it can neither offend nor instruct.

Bella said some tough things. Bella was brash. Bella was angry. Bella believed that anger was a good thing when it was vented against stupidity.

I don’t know if a Bella Abzug could exist in our present society. We would probably put her in a back office somewhere and make her the speechwriter for some blond bimbo who could more easily acquire the vote. I don’t know if we would ever allow her a microphone, a platform or an opportunity to spit fire in our faces.

But it’s because Bella Abzug lived that women today have the opportunity to argue about their positions and be heard–because so many years ago, she pointed out the fallacy in a system that was convinced of its infallibility.

Sometimes we need to stop and be grateful for the people who live, breathe, fight and die, never seeing their dreams come to fruition. Because of their plantings and hard work, the garden still has a chance to grow.

Because of their lives, we still have a chance to overcome our ignorance.

Abyss

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abyss: (n.) a deep or seemingly bottomless chasm.

For some reason, this particular scene really got inside me and registered.

Honestly, I watch a lot of things in movies that don’t impact me at all.  This is why I’m not fond of fantasy. I’m not looking for a way to escape reality–I’m looking for a way to make my present situation fantastic.

But when I watched the movie, The Abyss, and I saw the two characters trapped at the bottom of the ocean, needing to cross a large breadth of water to get to safety, knowing that one of them would not be able to achieve the task and would have to be carried, and that the best way to perform that and give the other one the chance was to have that one individual propelled literally as dead weight–it put a chill down my spine.

Obviously, there was great acting. But just the THOUGHT of being willing to die, placing my trust in another person to revive me on the other side, was absolutely horrifying to my spirit. And as I watched the flick, I found myself needing to turn away because the suspense and danger of it rattled me so.

I realized that I could never trust anyone quite that much. First of all, we would have to agree that the worst part of dying is being there for it. What happens after death is beyond our meager comprehension, and before death is just what we call Tuesday.

But to allow yourself to die, hoping that someone has the power to resurrect you, is probably the essence of what we deem faith.

After all, maybe to the angels in heaven, the earth appears to BE an abyss–a deep, dark chasm of misunderstanding. And I guess in some strange way we’re all supposed to die to this life in order to gain new discovery about ourselves and even eternity. But it doesn’t make it any less scary. It doesn’t make it easier to suck your last–trusting that everything’s going to be okay.

People tell me all the time that they’re not afraid to die and they’re “ready to meet Jesus.” I don’t know whether I believe them or not.

I guess I’m ready to meet Jesus, too.  I just wish it was at Starbucks.

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.”

ABV

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

ABV: (abbr.) alcohol by volume

Let’s even things out. I get it.

Politicians are generally considered to be greedy, nasty folks, out to get a vote, who will do anything to be elected.

People involved in religion are portrayed in our society usually as a bit ignorant, with an ax to grind and with the horrible side of being judgmental.

Corporate fat cats are only concerned about the bottom line and will personally kick your butt to get it.

Let’s just say that I don’t argue with any of that. But by the same token, WHY are alcohol and weed portrayed as “fun, glamorous, intriguing and giggly?”

I’ll tell you the truth: I saw a woman walking down the hallway of my motel the other night who was drunk. She was obnoxious, loud, out of her mind, a little scary and right near the front door, she threw up–which by the way, even though they cannot portray this in movies, STINKS.

I also stopped and asked two young men parked in front of a convenience store for directions . They rolled down their window and the waft of marijuana smoke floated out to my nostrils. Not only could they NOT give me adequate guidance to get to my destination, but I don’t think either of them ever knew I was there.

They weren’t HIGH. They were LOW.

The lady in the hallway wasn’t partying–she was vomiting.

Let’s try to create a society where we start with candor, move to balance and end up being able to make intelligent choices for ourselves. Let’s not attack government and spirituality and leave ABV and drug stupors in some sort of imaginary world of untouched revelry.

  • Alcohol makes people nuts.
  • Marijuana makes people dull.
  • Politics makes people compromise.
  • Religion makes people overly dependent.
  • And corporations make people too worried about profit margins.

I get it. I would just like to see this represented fairly. Alcohol is not better than the Baptist church simply because the people in the movies want to sell beer so they can get funding for their next project.

The alcohol blood volume in this nation is ridiculous. The political gridlock is equally stupid. The religious insignificance offered is insipid. And corporate greed is not making better products.

Call ’em like you see ’em–and make sure you test for the right volume in each situation.