gruntled |?gr?ntld|
adjective humorous
pleased, satisfied, and contented.
ORIGIN 1930s: back-formation from disgruntled.

Came home, had a nice dinner, decompressed from the day… re-read my sonnet and still liked it… stuck a handful of small squares on the wall and they’re ok but i just don’t have enough of a direction to go in yet… and then I threw a little catnip party for the cats.

They often just roll around and inhale until one or another of them gets pushy and then they all go sleep it off. Tonight they’ve moved part of the party into the hallway and this has caused there to be the occasional flying cat – one flies up onto the bed and somehow, incredibly flies right back off into the hallway. It seems like one fluid motion but that has to be contrary to the laws of conservation of energy and the laws of motion and all those hard core physics things.

I mean I know cats are somehow beyond the laws of nature but still.

Anyway, a little research, a little reading, a little wine to take the edge off quite the day and then to sleep for me!

Thanks to Lee, a newer co-worker for the conversation which led to the inspirational phrase for this. Not haiku material as I would have liked, she had suggested a broadway musical-ish tune. How about a sonnet instead?

Every geek is geeky in their own way
to name the passion is to rouse the breast
and in exclaiming all the fine points may
expose the sliver fineness of their quest.
The studied interest which fills the day
and continues onward even into rest,
lights up the countenance so very gay,
espousing this own thesis as the best.
Why be drawn to that geek’s subject matter?
Why listen to the fine points of their lore?
Stats of the universe or the batter:
what these, if you that smallest realm should bore?
You should chase your own topic and not stray:
Every geek is geeky in their own way.

Just to be clear, although geek in common usage often is technology related, it is not always so. You can “geek out” about anything.

geek
noun informal
1 an unfashionable or socially inept person.
• [ usu. with modifier ] a knowledgeable and obsessive enthusiast: a computer geek.
2 a carnival performer who performs wild or disgusting acts.

Last weekend or so I rummaged through my jewelry box and sorted it out a bit. This morning I spent a few minutes polishing up some of the silver pieces. There was a fish pin given to me by my junior high homeroom and math teacher, Mrs. Lehner. There was a very inexpensive silver bead on a chain that always gets admiring looks. There was another necklace, much older and a long-ago purchase of a young working girl.

And then there was this, the thimble cage given to me by my little office of co-workers when I left the CopyCenter in the NYS Assembly.

Their other gift was a small wooden box with: the over-ride key that I’d always longed for – that would have let me run the big Xerox DocuTech with its doors open. I still have that too, a fond memento of my days with what was then state-of-the-art…

As a bonus, here’s something that was a gift from a cousin many years ago and which still reminds me to “do the work!” every day.

Saw Anna Karenina at the Crandell (now at $7, still quite the bargain) The crowd was predominantly older women. Despite my fears while waiting for it to start, the theater was silent throughout the movie.

I’m going to be chewing on this one for awhile. It’s been many years since I read Anna K., Long before I knew anything about love or the world. There were a few times when I caught myself looking at the exquisite costuming. It was fabulous. All those wonderful gowns over equally wonderful foundation garments.

Alas, a little too stylized, a little too modern and so I also had a few moments where I thought: Tolstoy meets steampunk.

So, good or bad? You’ll have to decide for yourself. It’s a movie that probably bears seeing a second time to unravel the film-maker’s vision. I sort of wish there’d been a discussion period after the film just to hear how the other viewers were feeling about it.