Author Archives: Miss Kitten

WOTD: resplendent

With many apologies for not posting a WOTD yesterday but I was too busy being sick and watching coverage of the Royal Wedding. I just love stuff like that. Royal Weddings that is, not being sick. I just find all the negativity and complaints about it to be really sad. “I couldn’t care less!” Well, obviously you do care enough to state that you don’t care. “What a waste of tax-payer money!” Oh moan, bitch, whine, complain. Why can’t you just be happy for the young attractive couple and be happy in general? Also, if you’re really concerned about the cost you can always ask for your 69 pence (each British tax payer’s share of the money spent on the wedding) back from the British government.

But I digress…

I thought I’d choose a word that is inspired by the recent Royal Wedding. Resplendent is an adjective and it’s defined as “shining brilliantly.” It basically means the same thing as dazzling, radiant, gorgeous and magnificent.  As in:

Prince William looked resplendent in his bright red wedding coat. 

Drowsy

These pills might make you drowsy,
That’s what the doctor said.
What she really meant to say is,
You should probably be in bed.
Don’t try to work or drive a car,
Or use the stove or open cans.
Take one when you feel lousy.
Just don’t make any other plans.

Word of the Day: spatula

Today’s word is not particularly special or meaningful. It’s doesn’t really have any qualities at all. I choose it simply because I think it sounds funny. What an amusing collection of sounds for such an ordinary object that does such an ordinary task.

It’s a noun. It’s Latin. The original word hasn’t changed all that much. Spatula, in Latin means, “broad flat tool or weapon.” Something that is spatula-like can be modified with the adjective spatular. As in, “The car smashed into the spatular part of a snowplow.”

Incidentally, it’s really hard to think of something that rhymes with spatula…

Any other funny-sounding words you can think of?

The Vestibules have a lot of ideas:

Stay tuned…

Word of the Day: obscene, profane, and vulgar

Today’s words are all adjectives and they all have similar meanings, but each word has a different quality.

The word obscene suggests something that is offensive to decency or morality and which is abominable, disgusting, or repulsive. For me the Jerry Springer Show comes to mind as the perfect example of something that is obscene par excellence.  However, the word can also be used to describe something that is in greater excess than it ought to be. For example: obscene wealth. A great example of an obscene word is cocksucker, one of the late George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. It’s nicely offensive isn’t it? And it’s certainly indecent and possibly immoral.

Moving on to profane, then. This word in its noun form: profanity, is often used to encapsulate all “bad” and “dirty” words, but the word profane itself has religious connotations. It’s the antonym of the word sacred. Something that is profane is characterized by an irreverence or contempt for God or sacred principles or things. I’ve never been particularly religious, but to me, the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church – pretty much everything they do – but particularly their picketing the funerals of soldiers and marines killed in action. Well, to me that’s just profane. They are the antithesis of everything decent and honest and good in this world.

Finally, the word vulgar pretty much describes much of the content of MTV these days. Vulgarity is characterized by a complete ignorance of or a total lack of good breeding and taste. (See: Jersey Shore) It’s inelegant, unrefined, ribald, low. In Shakespeare’s time, the word vulgar meant “common,” in a Kate Middleton-ish kind of way. Basically not royalty. Even farther back the word vulgar meant “vernacular.”  At one time there was huge controversy over the first bible written in a vernacular (non-Latin) language. It was called the “Vulgate” bible.  Interesting, huh?

Until next time…

Going to the doctor in Sweden…

There are different ways of getting medical treatment in Sweden. First of all you can call and make appointment with a certain doctor or nurse practitioner, which usually works out just fine for non-emergency stuff. Most of the time there are appointments available the same day or the next day to see a normal GP or NP. Getting an appointment with a specialist takes longer of course (and you have to be referred) but Sweden is certainly not unique in that regard.

However, if you need to see a doctor the same day, and there aren’t any appointments available, you have two options. Option number one is to do what I did this morning and have your name added to the drop-in list. This is like having an appointment without having an appointment. I called my local vårdcentral (medical clinic) this morning and asked if there we’re any appointments after lunch because I needed to see a doctor as soon as possible about these pollen allergies. The person on the phone said there weren’t any appointments, but that they had drop-in hours until noon. Otherwise I’d have to wait until tomorrow. I’d said I’d rather not so she added my name to the list. This meant that they could expect to see me sometime between the time I hung up the phone (around 9:30) and 12. I left work at ten and got the the doctor’s office around 10:30.

After checking in and paying for the appointment, I sat down and waited. And waited. Aaaand waited. There was a full waiting room today so I knew it would be a while. I was wishing I had my Kindle with me, but rather than amuse myself with the small selection of out-of-date magazines, I sat quietly and casually listened to the coughs and moans and complaints of other patients waiting for same-day but not necessarily emergency treatment.

Finally, after waiting for about an hour and a half my name was called, and I was taken to an examination room where I was left for another ten minutes: “The doctor will be with you shortly.” Why do that always do that?

The doctor came in and I told her about how I’d been up all last night and unable to breathe while lying down, and that my eyes and throat were so itchy it was driving me crazy. The two different allergy tablets I had bought last week weren’t helping at all.  No, she said, it doesn’t matter how many of those you take, taking more won’t increase their efficacy. She prescribed me some stronger tablets and some eye drops for pollen allergy suffers. I asked about cortisone injections, since that was recommended to me earlier today, but she informed me that they no longer give those injections. (I wonder why not…) They do give cortisone tablets, though, to people who have it really bad. She said to try the tablets and eye drops for a week and then if I was still suffering, she’d prescribe the cortisone. The conversation I had with her lasted no longer than 5 minutes. I then spent another 15 minutes in the pharmacy waiting to pick up my prescriptions.

All in all, the whole process, from the time I checked in to the time I paid for the medicine, took about two hours. This is not bad at all, especially when one considers the second must-see-a-doctor-today option. Of course I mean the so-called emergency room. If you have to go to the ER, then don’t make any plans for the rest of the day. Or night. And you might want to clear tomorrow as well.

And it will cost you three times as much and you’ll end up waiting three times as long as going to the vårdcentral. Thankfully, I’ve had to visit the ER only once since I’ve been living in Sweden, but it was a genuine medical emergency. I was having an allergic reaction to a medication I’d been prescribed, and the person on the ask-a-nurse hotline told me to go to the emergency room immediately. She asked if I needed an ambulance as well, but the hospital was only a short bus ride away so I said I could make it on my own. When I got there I talked to the intake staff who took down my information and gave me some medicines to stabilize me. Then they sent me to the waiting room, where I believe I waited for at least four hours. By the time I got to see a doctor I was feeling pretty much fine, but they wanted to keep me overnight for observation anyway. This was because stopping my medication suddenly (the one I was allergic to) could bring on a seizure.

Everything worked out just fine, by the way. No seizures. Even the nurses knew there was nothing wrong with me. They delivered my medicine in the morning but said I could get up and get my own breakfast off the cart. No problem, I thought. Let them take care of the people who really are ill.

Word of the Day: nostalgia

Interestingly, today’s word was once upon a time considered a medical condition.

Back in 1668, German Physician Johannes Hofer coined the word and defined it as “severe homesickness.” It is derived from the Greek words nostos (homecoming) and algos (pain). I never really thought about it before but the word nostalgia does look and sound like some kind of disease or disorder.  (See: myalgia)

The more modern definition of nostalgia as a sort of wistful longing for the past was first recorded in 1920. Nowadays however, the word can also be defined as not necessarily a desire to return to the past, but simply an appreciation for it.

Naturally, this means that the nostalgic tend to look at their particular favorite time in the past through rose-colored glasses, seeing only the good things and disregarding the bad. For example, many people these days long for the simpler times before cell phones and broadband internet connections, but of course they tend to forget how much harder life was back then.

Somehow I got through high school and most of college having used actual books, magazines, and microfiche/film as research material for reports and papers. I remember typing high school homework assignments on a Smith Corona typewriter. Sure, the internet was around in the mid-90s when I started college, but it was all as new and wild as an Old West frontier town. Many of my professors and teachers did not entirely trust the content on the internet (and rightly so) and therefore they simply would not accept internet-based sources.

The young people of today tend to not appreciate how easy they have it, but it’s not at all their fault. Just as Generation Xers like me cannot remember a time when there was no television, the Generation Y kids cannot remember a time when there was no internet.

They were born into the information age.

Stay tuned…

On Graduation Hat Day…

I’m back, everyone! Mark and Erika say hello. I’ve been working on my Graduation Hat Day poem since I got back this afternoon, with a lot of help from Master Poet Ken. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

With many friends throughout the years,
You’ve shared laughter and shared tears.
Worked and studied very hard,
And spent some time in the schoolyard.
We teachers try our best to educate,
So that all of you can graduate.
It is very often hard, although,
It is to help you grow, and know,
That we wouldn’t put you through it,
If we did not know that you could do it.
It may feel like years ‘till the big day,
But it’s really only weeks away.
When they see that hat upon your head,
Many tears of pride and joy will be shed.

Word of the Day: smörgåsbord

Today’s word is one of the few Swedish words that has been incorporated into the English language. I’ve chosen to use the original Swedish spelling, but of course the English spelling leaves out the Swedish vowels ö and å. One of the hardest aspects of learning Swedish is learning how to pronounce these vowels properly.

The word smörgåsbord is a compound noun, which are commonplace in Swedish but rare in English. It’s comprised of the words smörgås (sandwich) and bord (table) so the word translated literally into English is “a table of sandwiches.” In reality, it’s usually much more than that. The dictionary defines smörgåsbord as “a buffet meal of various hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, salads, casserole dishes, meats, cheeses, etc.”

I’ve always thought of a smörgåsbord as a variety of different dishes that don’t necessarily go together. That’s probably because years ago when I was staying with my grandmother, I remember she would say “Let’s have a smörgåsbord lunch.” This meant we would have a buffet of whatever leftovers that happened to be in the fridge. This could be spaghetti, beef stew, Greek salad and pineapple rings.

The word smörgåsbord also has a more figurative meaning, as an extensive array or variety.

For example:

During my last flight to the United States I was subjected to smörgåsbord of problems, everything from lost luggage to frozen toilet water. 

Of course in the above example, I’m using the word ‘everything’ metaphorically.

Until next time…