Amuse-bouche:

Why is “liqueur” pronounced liquor and “liquor” pronounced liqueur?

---

Today’s Wonderful Word: “animalcule.”

Definition: a minute or microscopic animal, nearly or quite invisible to the naked eye.

Etymology: “Animalcule” was first recorded in English in the 1590s. It comes from New Latin animalculum, meaning “small animal.” The animal– element literally means “airy” or “breathy” in Latin.

---

Writing from December 4, 2020

“Does he honestly expect me to believe he honestly cares about me?” Droning on and on about what he expects me to believe. I mean, honestly, what does he think he’s doing?

            At the feet of the boy was a bearskin rug. To his left was a coffee table his father built in 1983. To his right was the brick fireplace which had seen no fire in many moons – the same fireplace with a persistent bit of red where his mother had scrubbed and scraped and tried in vain to remove the aftermath of a nasty spill. It wasn’t wine that spilled.

            Across from the boy was his father, the man who had built the table to the boy’s left and had caused a nasty spill many moons ago. The man across from the boy was the man who killed the bear and drank the wine and listened, deep in concentration, eyes fixed on the one blemish in the skin – the bullet had entered at an angle, which tore a two-inch gash before breaking the surface.

            Behind the hand-made coffee table, on the leather couch, was a man who did the droning. “He doesn’t know,” the boy thought. “He couldn’t know what this is like.” And the man on the soft, cold leather did not know what it was like to sit and tremble and remember the times when those caring hands, soft and cold (now – they were once warm – ), would scrub and clean and sympathize and manage. The man across from the boy was doing what he could, but the man in the couch could not expect him to honestly believe he had pity in his heart. 

            There was no compassion behind the wordless dronings, no fire behind the unstainless bricks, no fear within the pitiful skins, no sorrow shared among the three; each with their musings and wonderings and their questionings which begged for someone – anyone – to understand the dept of their pain and their questioning musings which left them wondering, “Does he honestly expect…”

Answer to Saturday’s riddle:

ICE

COUNT

VALIANT