lonely little garlic clove

We thoroughly enjoyed our turkey-day feast last week... so much so that we made a second batch of garlic mashed potatoes and cornbread stuffing on Saturday. I refuse to feel guilty about being so gluttonous. It was lovely!

We used a lot of garlic over the past five days (and I'm sure my co-workers appreciate my spicy aroma. hmmm, sorry!). I had to giggle a little when one of the garlic cloves turned out to be itty-bitty; perfect for a lilliputian.

Anyway, this tiny clove reminded me of a cute Thai saying but I can never remember the exact phrasing. The saying is about being alone without your family: when you are by yourself, you're a lonely little garlic clove that has been separated from the head of garlic. I know I don't have it quite right, but I've already pestered Phil too much about silly Thai translations, so I won't bug him again about this phrase (maybe later).

mocha

See? Television CAN be educational. I had no idea (until today) that 'Mocha' is the name of a port in Yemen where coffee was traded for over two centuries – that's what I learned while watching T.V. today.

While 'mocha' is also the name of a type of coffee bean grown in Indonesia, I found it interesting that the word 'mocha' probably originates from that port city in Yemen. Yes, I'm a self-declared word-nerd so this sort of stuff intrigues me.

verbivore

Words. I love words. In fact, I think I might be a word snob. I refuse to use abbreviations in my text messages, forum posts and blog posts. I still use proper punctuation, spell words out completely and always check my spelling. And, since I have never in my life actually spoken the phrase "laugh out loud" I find that I have no need to use that ever-so-popular abbreviation in my writing. Never. A little pedantic, I know, but someone has to preserve 'real language' before we all forget how to spell; before we humans start to communicate purely with abbreviations.

I don't know why I love words so much. I just do. I'm a verbivore. When I was in college, our college radio station broadcast word etymology snippets in a program called Chrysti the Wordsmith and I thought the program was brilliant. Word origins are totally fascinating. In fact, as soon as Chrysti published a book, I ran out and bought it (Verbivore's Feast: A Banquet of Word & Phrase Origins From Chrysti the Wordsmith).

Anyway, what's not to love about language and words and letters? This week, my favorite word is invective, a noun that means "highly critical or insulting language."