Tardy Tuesday Tidings

Well, I guess I missed doing my usual Monday musings. Sometimes I start them on Monday and finish them on Tuesday but keep them with Monday's date. Not this week...

The week has officially begun.

We watched a fantastic 24 episode last night. Many fans are restless with the series, I think, but we're enjoying it immensely.

We enjoyed ourselves at the Rocco Deluca and the Burden/Mat Kearney/The Feeling concert over the weekend, even if we did feel a good bit older than most of the crowd. I told Stuart we could be the parents of some of the kids there. The crowd was made up mostly of 15- to 18-year-olds. Egads! All the people our age and older were sitting at the tables along the side. In honor of the concert, I'm keeping up last week's video.

Edward played a game of chess with Stuart yesterday. Quite a good game, according to Stuart. At one point, Stuart called out "check" on Edward's king. Edward moved another piece instead of the king. Stuart laughed and told him he couldn't do that. He had to move his king out of check. Edward exclaimed, "It's not like he wants to see the world or anything."

Emily wanted to do a play for me recently. I told her to do it with Edward in her room. He said they could use stuffed animals as an audience. She sighed and said, "But stuffed animals don't clap for you."

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5 THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT

• surf-lashed lighthouses

• unabridged dictionaries

• a jar of seashells

• squeezing into a booth

• puddle-jumping

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We've certainly been doing a lot of "puddle-jumping" these days. We had a "nor'easter" storm rip through, dumping over 5 inches of rain and blowing to bits the outer world. Not even "duck weather" -- better suited to penguins.

When I was in college, I took a class in my senior year called "All About Words." I thought it might be a great class for someone studying English and journalism.

The textbook for the class was the latest edition of the Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary...which back then cost about $25 or so.

It was excellent. I'd only really used pocket dictionaries up until that point (though we had a two-volume set from the 1970s at home). You know the paperback ones you can buy in the dollar store that contain about 1,000 widely-known/heavily-used words.

Suddenly, I was in love with our language. The entries often included a brief etymology of the word -- which I always find interesting -- as well as the year the word came into usage. I found myself reading it just for fun, learning all sorts of new and interesting tidbits.

I still have that dictionary. I keep it on our main bookshelf so that the kids can use it if they need to.

Emily chuckled at the gift page where I wrote "Presented to: Susanne M. Wilson....by Herself."

But it truly was a gift to me...one that keeps on giving.