quiet memorial

As you enter Burnet Park via Burnet Park Drive, just off Coleridge Avenue (so many authors celebrated on Tipperary Hill's street names! Coleridge, Tennyson, Whittier, Tompkins, Lowell, Emerson, Bryant), you see a stone slab, maybe six feet high, dedicated to those servicemen who died in World War II. It is a simple and quiet memorial. It has the words "hallow" or "hallowed" on it. It has the word "neighbors" on it.

And each year for Memorial Day, someone, quietly and dutifully and anonymously, makes sure that there is a flag in each flowerpot on either side of the monument, and red and white nasturtiums in the flowerpots, and red begonias in the flowerbed in front of the marker with two or three dozen names of the fallen.

I may be wrong as to what kinds of flowers those are, but I am not mistaken regarding the devotion of this person or these persons.

walky talky

and if there is a silence presumably it must have its opposite so here is a walky talky outburst of today's footsteps and missteps from the sand at Verona Beach (were as many as two gentlemen from Verona? spying bikini-clad beachgoers?) to the shores of Oneida Lake, from the windswept groves of Sunday, to the not-yet memories of Monday memorialized et cetera et cetera blah blah either or this or that before or after age quod agis

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this is a silence between posts

silence

The sermon was about space.

And silence.

Space on walls in a gallery, allowing room for the paintings to live and breathe, as it were, or as it is.

The space between words or sounds, which call silence.

Oddly, he spoke of John's Gospel and the Word. And the Silence eternal before the Word. Then, curiously, the eucharistic prayer said something like, "Your Word has never been silent."

My lawyerly mind (I'm not a lawyer, though) said to myself, which is it?

Why can't my zen mind say: why does it have to be either/or (the title of a Kierkegaard work)? Why can't it be both?

(Grammar purists might tell you that the slash, or virgule, is used improperly above.)

Silence.

church window haiku, outside Saint David's

flowering crabtree
rock on rock water trickles
still chipmunk listens

resigned to re-signation

"Welcome to Tipperary Hill."

It is clarion clear now, yellow letters on a green background, a tocsin call to cordiality, a welcome, a radical hospitality.

The welcome sign of Tipperary Hill has been spruced up, freshened.

You are welcome.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Thanks. And when you think of it, there is nothing more gratifying than acceptance, nothing more welcoming than your being greeted and warmly regarded just as you are.

Funny Googlenopes

Herewith, with full credit and attribution to The Washington Post, are some very amusing Googlenopes:

Report from Week 865 of The Style Invitational

in which we sought yet more Googlenopes -- phrases that still yielded that "no results found" icon when you offer them to the Universe's Biggest Search Engine. Once again, some of the thousands of 'Nopes submitted were just convenient misspellings of names. For all the results below -- which were still unique at press time -- the phrases were entered within quotation marks. Capitalization didn't matter in the searches.

Several entrants noted to the Empress that they were more amazed by the phrases that did produce a few hits, such as "National Beet Day" (discovered by Tom Kreitzberg) or "the wisdom of Tom Cruise" (noted by Russell Beland). These have been called Googleyups, and yes, we'll have to get to them. (We have already done Googlewhacks, in which there is exactly one hit.)

The winner of the Inker

Both "Nobody understands me like my husband" and "Nobody understands me like my wife" (Mark Richardson, Washington)

2. the winner of the nine-inch-long black gummi rat:

"I was persuaded by the picket sign" (Dan Steinberg, Silver Spring)

3. "President Obama wigs" (Mike Turniansky, Pikesville, Md.)

4. "I lost lots of weight by eating better and exercising" (Sheri Tardio, Prince Frederick)

None: The Less -- Honorable mentions

"Lady Gaga wore a modest" . . . (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn)

"Muhammad Halloween masks" (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

"I always lift the toilet seat for my husband" (David Thorne, Washington, a First Offender)

"Now I understand all of 'Lost' " (Craig Dykstra, Centreville)

"He's so spacey his brain farts cause global warming" (Roy Ashley, Washington)

"We've decided to name our baby Eyjafjallajökull" (Dan Gordon, Arlington)

"The Vatican reversed its policy on" . . . (Dan Ramish, Washington)

"How to style your hair like Rod Blagojevich" (Steve Offutt, Arlington)

"Hiking the Appalachian Trail with your wife" (Steve Offutt)

"Find me an Amway dealer" (Russell Beland, Fairfax)

"The GOP leadership sought a compromise" (Anne Paris, Arlington)

"The Yiddish word for 'splurge' " (Rick Haynes, Potomac)

"I wish Bush were still in the White House" (Dan Ramish)

"They filled the pothole right away" (Ben Aronin, Arlington)

"Our priest is celibate" (Kevin Dopart)

"My ex-husband is an angel" (Kathy Bacskay, Lorton, a First Offender)

"Brief remarks by the House speaker" (Jeff Contompasis)

"I was outraged by that 'Family Circus' cartoon" (Julie Thomas and Will Cramer, Herndon)

"If wishes were horses, birthday parties would reek." (Rachel A. Bernhardt, Silver Spring)

"employed in Novi, Mich." (Judy Blanchard, Novi, Mich.)

"Kitty Kelley's balanced portrayal of" . . . (Drew Bennett, West Plains, Mo.)

"The Manischewitz's refined bouquet" (Mike Gips, Bethesda)

"French spam recipes" (Craig Dykstra)

"beloved Redskins kicker" (Ward Kay, Vienna)

"tattoos your mom will love" (Judy Blanchard)

"Scranton getaway vacations" (Kevin Dopart)

"I don't know, so I'll say nothing." (Tom Kreitzberg, Silver Spring)

"unwanted strip of bacon" (Russell Beland)

"My cat really cares about me" (Dan Klein, McLean)

"the world's second-largest microbrewery" (Russell Beland)

"Facebook: A better mousetrap" (Ben Aronin)

"the best of the feel-good Russian novels" (Michael Woods, Arlington)

"Three animals were harmed in the making of this movie" (Russell Beland)

"The Amish Justin Timberlake" (Craig Dykstra)

"I laughed at The Style Invitational" (Kevin Dopart)

Next week: Natalie Portmanteau, or Overlappellations

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