Artisanal Jesus

I’ve been having lots of misreads of late – those eye-to-brain glitches when somehow even context doesn’t save me, so that ‘paying’ becomes ‘praying’.  If there’s a neurological malfunction going on, I’ve got to say it’s the first one I’ve known with a sense of humor, as in the most recent misread:

I read ‘artisanal cheeses’ and hear in my head ‘artisanal Jesus’ . . . Artisanal Jesus?  What?  Really?  I actually make myself laugh aloud at that one.

Exactly what or who is an artisanal Jesus?

Is artisanal Jesus
hand-crafted
or
hand-crafting?

Instructing
or
instructed?

Art
or
artist?

Is artisanal Jesus for only the truly appreciative?  Is artisanal Jesus a boutique Jesus only for the select, in-the-know few (sounds a bit gnostic for my tastes)?

Is artisanal Jesus more flavorful than any other Jesus?

Maybe artisanal Jesus is actually made of cheese.

What would Buddy Jesus make of Artisanal Jesus?

What would an Artisanal Jesus action figure look like?  (I’m guessing pretty much like the figures we have in our imagining today, when robes and beards and sandals signify to the hopefuls a character of distinction, separate from the crowd).

All this meandering of mind brings me back to the original – artisanal cheeses – wondering whether a cheese made by hand is really better than one made any other way . . . whether the ways we’ve left behind are really worth going back to . . . whether I really want my cheeses to be unique and distinct from yours and if so, why . . .

So if you want to know what at least one lady preacher does for fun on a slow day, there you have it . . . artisanal Jesus indeed.

I Am Gruntled

Today I have decided to be gruntled.

“What?” you ask, and rightly so.

There is no such word as ‘gruntled.’  There used to be.  We English speakers all know the grammar rule:

word + dis- = not the word

So if I can be disgruntled (displeased, upset, unhappy), surely I can be gruntled.

Turns out I used to could.  But not longer.  Back in the 1400's, I could gruntle (to utter a little or low grunt Entymology, which apparently indicated satisfaction or pleasure).  But no more, as the main word from which disgruntle was formed has fallen out of usage.  I guess with our many and pervasive civilizing influences, we no longer grunt our pleasure – or we shouldn’t, so best not to speak of such things.

But here’s the thing that captured my attention: googling for synonyms for the word happy, the first response that came up was synonyms for sad – expert info on depression.

Now that’s enough to make one depressed, isn’t it?

Searching for words to express ‘happy’, the google gods decide I’m probably depressed and sad.

Sigh.

It would be funny – if it weren’t.

The good news is I finally found 48 synonyms for happy.  Thesarus with ‘only’ 46 for sad.  I’m happy, glad (a synonym for happy, so I confess to redundancy) that ‘happy’ edges out ‘sad’ on synonyms.

In fact, I’m gruntled.

What is a Lamset, Alex?

Another in my continuing silliness of making up definitions for the random letters for the online  security check to make sure that you’re a human being (as opposed to what, I want to ask), aka captcha.

The definition possibilities are:
1. A lamb in the blocks, race position fixed
2. A fine sewing needle – or –
3. A straw hat

The answer?

Lamset

Monday we gather, we friends of Stu Hammel, to bid him the final farewell in this thing we call a funeral.  It has been an incredibly sad week.  But for these few hours, there’s been a respite – the calm in the eye of the storm . . . the place where family and friends sit and actually laugh, allowing themselves to wander from the focus on the sadness . . . forgetting for an instant . . . looking away from and towards . . . away from the pain and towards the things of life – the mundane as well as the wonderful.

There have been times in my life when I have cursed my ‘waste’ of time.  But I see things differently now . . . now I think it’s not possible to waste time . . . rather, I think we simply live . . . for however long it is allotted to us, we live . . . whether ridiculously or sublimely, we live.

That is how it should be.

_____________
My own favorite definition for the made-up word lamset is a straw hat, although it would be #1, a lamb in the blocks, race position fixed, if I ever thought I could get a lamb to pose for the picture.