Don't Forget Your Bumbershoot!

Dr. Goodword (aka Robert Beard) has compiled a list of The 100 Funniest Words in the English Language. Your assignment dear reader, should you choose to accept it, is to choose a word from the list and leave a comment using that word in a sentence.

Here are a few examples:

The cheerleader turned up her nose in disdain when the acne-riddled hobbledehoy asked her to the homecoming dance.

He approached her with a purposeful stride and planted such a passionate kiss as to render the young women completely discombobulated.

The couple's argle-bargle dissipated as they realized how little the color of his socks really mattered.

Now it's your turn!

Curbside Consultation of the Colon

The U.K.'s Bookseller Magazine has announced the shortlist for the annual Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. You can read all about it here.

The shortlist includes 6 titles, which are as follows:

Baboon Metaphysics by Dorothy Dorothy L Cheney and Robert M Seyfarth (University of Chicago Press)

Curbside Consultation of the Colon by Brooks D Cash (SLACK Incorporated)

The Large Sieve and its Applications by Emmanuel Kowalski (Cambridge University Press)

Strip and Knit with Style by Mark Hordyszynski (C&T)

Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring by Lietai Yang (Woodhead)

The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais by Professor Philip M Parker (Icon Group International)

The prestigious award was first conceived by The Diagram Group’s Bruce Robertson as a way to avoid boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Run by Horace Bent, the first ever winner was the University of Tokyo Press’ Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice, in 1978. Last year’s winner was If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs.

Go to www.theBookseller.com to vote for your favorite. As you can see from the title of this post, I've picked mine.

You Mock My Pants

It has recently come to my attention that a series of statements can be made much more interesting by replacing one of the words with "pants." [For this I am indebted to Jason Boyett, who employed this tactic with lines from Star Wars and Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God" on his blog.] I've decided to try this with some classic lines from one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride.

Farmboy, polish my horse's pants. (Buttercup)

She doesn't get eaten by the pants at this time. (Grandpa)

Pants cannot stop true love. (Westley)

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my pants. Prepare to die. (Inigo)

You mock my pants. (Buttercup)

You rush a miracle man, you get rotten pants. (Miracle Max)

You were not hired for your pants, you hippopotamic land mass. (Vizzini)

You be careful. People in pants cannot be trusted. (Fezzik)

We face each other as God intended. Sportsmanlike. No tricks, no pants, skill against skill alone. (Fezzik)

I challenge you to a battle of pants. (Westley)

You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched pants when your back was turned! (Vizzini)

Really that's all this is, except that instead of sucking water, I'm sucking pants. (Count Rugen)

Please consider me as an alternative to pants. (Prince Humperdinck)

Raspberry Lemonade Party Punch

Yesterday afternoon I threw a bridal shower with Jenn, another bridesmaid, for our friend Bethany who's getting married in April. Given it was the day after Valentine's Day, our "conversation hearts" theme was easy (and fun) to run with. I used a candy heart generator I found online for designing the invitations and bridal bingo game. The favors were decorated sugar cookies (see photo) Jenn ordered from Kudos Kookies - they turned out great!

The menu consisted of fresh fruit with margarita dip, cucumber slices and crackers with dollops of Jenn's amazingly tasty garlic herb cheese spread, cake, and candy hearts (of course). I also threw together a punch that turned out so tasty, I thought I'd share the recipe. Enjoy!

Raspberry Lemonade Party Punch
2 2-liters of raspberry ginger ale
1 1/2 C powdered lemonade mix
1 bag frozen raspberries
1 tub raspberry sherbet
ice

Pour ginger ale into a large punch bowl. Add lemonade mix and stir until dissolved. Add raspberries, ice, and about 5-6 scoops of the sherbet. Replenish punch with more ginger ale, lemonade mix, ice, and sherbet as needed.

Food for Thought

I'm currently reading Covenant Marriage by Fred Lowery. My soon-to-be-married friend Bethany recommended it to me and lent me her copy. I'm enjoying it and getting so much out of it that I decided I needed to order my own copy so that I can highlight and underline "the good stuff" for myself, pass it on to Travis when I'm done with it, and keep it around to spark conversations, serve as a reference, and inform the marriage for which we are steadily preparing. (Related aside: we have our first pre-marital counseling session tomorrow night.)

So far I'm about half-way through the book. Lowery's thesis is this: American society views marriage as a contract. God designed marriage as a covenant. Understanding the difference, and deciding how you will view and approach your marriage, makes all the difference. Basic, but pretty profound at the same time.

I look forward to finishing the book and perhaps posting a more thorough review here later, but for now I wanted to post a nugget from Chapter 5 that particularly stood out to me as I read during the train ride from Wheaton to Chicago Monday evening to meet Travis for our consultation with the DJ. It's a quote from David Jeremiah that Lowery inserts in his discussion of "where it all started" in Genesis.

The man is restless while he misses the rib that was taken out of his side. The woman is restless until she gets under man's arm from where she was taken. It is humbling to the woman to know that she was created for the man, but it is to her glory to know that she alone can complete him. Likewise it is humbling to the man to know that he is incomplete without the woman, but it is to his glory to know that the woman was created for him.