Tag: Thoughts

Pigweed, no joke

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Every year, it seems we have a different weed or two that really takes off in the gardens. Virginia creeper nearly took out some shrubs a few years ago, the same time Jerusalem artichoke went rogue and nearly demolished a rhubarb.

Last year, a newcomer seemed to be popping up everywhere, and we kept tossing it out to the lawn for me to mow or to the driveway. Then, one afternoon, I put some in front of the rabbits … and they loved it.

Then came our quandary. Was it safe for them to eat?

In trying to identify the plant, we came across Better Homes & Garden’s online “only guide to weeds you’ll ever need,” and after scrolling past a few dozen we know all too well, we came across our suspect – pigweed.

And yes, it’s edible, even by some humans.

No wonder the bunnies were, uh, pigging out.

And our weed suddenly became a welcome crop to harvest abundantly.

 

He/she/it/they

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been accused of being unable to understand because I’m a man. It was tempting to respond that she couldn’t understand my need to have a God the Father to relate to as a man who needs a role model and a complete positive (for the most part) male authority figure, and she couldn’t understand because she’s a woman. We are in a bind. But that cheap shot would have accomplished nothing. I still say that Biblical language is not exclusive, if rendered correctly.

The irony here arose in the case of a woman who was being criticized by a man for using Biblical language. Who should know more whether she felt excluded by its masculine nouns? As she said, it’s his problem.

~*~

Oh, my, this was all before some of my most important fictional characters were women.

The pandemic’s put new words and phrases on our lips

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Sometimes we need to state the obvious. So just to make sure we’re conscious of one impact, here are ten words and phrases the pandemic’s added to our everyday vocabularies over the past year.

  1. Coronavirus. (Of course.) We even learned to spell it.
  2. Covid. (Ditto.) Upper- or lower-case.
  3. Zoom. The word existed, just not in the context we now think of first.
  4. Shelter in place. This one still strikes me as strange.
  5. Self-quarantine, self-isolation. I suppose it’s supposed to sound voluntary. Or else.
  6. Social distancing. Specifically, six feet or more.
  7. Vaxxed. Which leads us to:
  8. Moderna. Not as a chic word for contemporary.
  9. Pfeizer. As a synonym for a vaccine, rather than the pharmaceutical giant.
  10. Fauci. Dr. Anthony.

There are more. What would you add to the list?

Are we finished?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

We writers or artists, at least some of us, push ourselves as far as we can, coming to a point where we no longer know if a piece is any good or not, only that we’ve done everything in its pursuit that we possibly can at this period in our life.

Either it gets published or whatever as is or gets pushed aside, maybe to be picked up later and reworked, maybe to go in the trash. Or maybe Death intervenes.