i need less
the more i live
love is all
kat – 25 March 2017
Reclaimed Spaces
photo by Cathal Mac an Bheatha via Unsplash
Years later, after completing culinary school, she returned home, purchased the old storefront and reclaimed the space for a restaurant specializing in vegan fare.
She kept the neon sign as a novelty and called her place “Fresh Meets”.
kat ~ 24 March 2017
For Sonya’s Three Line Tale challenge based on the photo above by Cathal Mac an Bheatha.
Esoterica – Friday’s Word of the Day Haiku
Happy Friday. Today’s Dictionary.com word of the day is Esoterica. But I couldn’t resist the word of the day for yesterday…Throttlebottom (Definition: a harmless incompetent in public office.)! What an awesome word. Oh how I wish we used these types of words today. How enjoyable the nightly news would be if our journalists embraced some of the other obscure, descriptive words featured as words of the day. I wish I had time to research each one. Here’s a sampling of the last week or so…
Breaking news from kat’s imagination: “Today was a most cimmerian day for the nation. The halls of congress were a-twitter with crocodilian calls for justice in response to the latest canard from our vaunting, throttlebottom of a president. Meanwhile the lotus-eaters were oscitant to this developing malfeasance.”
Even if the news is bad, at least it would be entertaining.
But back to our official word of the day, Esoterica. It is a noun that evolved from the Greek adjective esōterikós which means “belonging to the initiate, inner, esoteric” with a “distinguished history in ancient Greek philosophical systems (Pythagorian, Aristotelian, Stoic).” The English noun form is attributed to poet Ogden Nash who used the term in a 1930’s poem published in The New Yorker, referring to the obscenity trials over James Joyce’s Ulysses. It is defined as things understood by or meant for a select few; recondite matters or items. Or curiosa (books, pamphlets, etc., dealing with unusual subjects, including books, pamphlets, etc., containing pornographic literature or art; erotica).
I like this quote from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, “Life is a conundrum of esoterica”. It literally means that life is a confusing and difficult problem, question or riddle, understood by or meant to be understood by a select few. I think it captures the meaning of esoterica perfectly!
Unless of course it is a skin cream. Esoterica the moisturizer promises to lighten dark (brownish) areas on the skin, such as freckles, age and liver spots and other skin conditions that result in localized high concentrations of melanin.
Or a Black/Heavy Metal music band called Esoterica from Pennsylvania…or the now disbanded UK Christian rap/West Coast hip-hop, Dance/Electric band called ESO for esOterica…or the name of a secret cult of humanoid characters, with access to alien technology, able to span dimensions, called the The Flame Keepers’ Circle in the gaming world’s story of Diagon. But I digress. 🙂
My job today is to come up with a haiku using today’s word of the day…Esoterica. Skin creams, Metal/Alertnative/Rock bands and video cult circles aside, I am mulling around the idea of applying estoterica to the current secretive nature of our government. With the added bonus of yesterday’s word, throttlebottom, you get a two-fer this week. Have a great weekend!
daft throttlebottoms
bellow esoterica
proving they are fools
kat ~ 24 March 2017
Penny’s First Word
For Jane Dougherty’s Sunday Strange Challenge based on this painting by Ford Madox Brown.
Painting by Ford Madox Brown – Pretty Baa-Lambs
“Pretty Baa-Lambs” her mother said, “baa, baa, baa. Penny can you say it? What do the pretty lambs say?”
Penny was not having it. Her mother called her stubborn. Maybe she was, but Penny did not like this new game her mother always wanted to play.
“Momma,” her Mother would say, leaning in closer, eyes bulging, mouth puckering, smacking the syllables in a grotesque litany of sound bites, “Maaa…mmm…aaa…mAAA…mmmm…AAA.”
It was a never-ending battle. Everything, it seemed had a name. There was a word for each want. “Why wasn’t crying and cooing enough? It had always worked in the past. What was it with these people?” Penny thought to herself as she continued her resistance.
Then one day she heard a lovely word. An amazing word! It was not her mother, but her father who uttered it loud and clear for Penny to hear.
“I like that word.” Penny thought. She decided to say her new favorite word the next time her mother started one of her sound-it-out-say-it, ‘momma’ rants.
For her very first word, Penny smiled innocently at her mother, eyes wide with excitement, as she curled her tongue back and set her top two teeth into a perfect overbite…”FUCK!”
Penny had never seen her mother react so. It was wonderful! So wonderful, she repeated it over and over again, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She was a proud baby that day. Very proud indeed!
~kat – 23 March 2017
once
PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll
Once upon a time, my halls sang with laughter. My kitchen hummed, percolated and crackled, steamy and aromatic; hints of cinnamon, coffee, fresh bread and bacon.
Tea was served every afternoon in my parlor. Gossip dripped like venom from the rouged lips of fine ladies in flowery frocks, their white-gloved pinkies lifted properly as they sipped from china cups. My study still smells of sweet, fine cigars from nights when distinguished gentleman gathered after dinner to discuss the politics of the day.
These days people do their living outside my iron gates; sleeping with me, then leaving.
~kat – 23 March 2017
(97 Words)
For Rochelle Wisoff-Fields Friday Fictioneers 100 word story challenge based on the photo above by J. Hardy Carroll.
Most Inspirational Blogger Nominee
like mercury colliding... 