MORE WORD CHOICES THAT ARE JUST SO NOW ... OR WAS THAT YESTERDAY?

JOURNEY -  Everything you experience is your journey.  Journey used to be long episodes of travel, across mountains, deserts, or oceans and entail strange foods and weird cultural customs, but now the pettiest things and the most horrendous things you experience all fall into your journey,

"She graduated college. What a journey!"

BATTLE - A battle until recently was a military operation in which two sides violently clashed.

Now Battle is used just about every time someone dies to explain that they were HEROIC.  I.e. the word CANCER seems to always be ASSUMED to be a BATTLE.  But what if you get diagnosed and you think "so it shall be" and you DO NOT BATTLE?  (I will respect you if you choose not to fight a disease.)  Another Battle is supposedly Alzheimer's.  Battle used with Alzheimer's assumes that the person could FIGHT their own deterioration.  Battle's as used to describe the horrific medical treatment some people endure is often used with the word LONG. 

"She died last week after a long battle with cancer."

FIGHT - Along with Battle, the word Fight, which used to be about having a verbal or physical altercation with another person or persons, in particular on the school yard, is used to explain all sorts of activities in which there isn't an opponent exactly, the activity is just difficult or stressful or taxing.  A few letters back and forth with the IRS qualifies.

"If she starts her own business, she's in for a fight."

THANKSGIVING MOUSE : TALKING TO STRANGERS

I felt torn when I told my friend that I could not go out of town to Thanksgiving with her to her family but in the end staying put was the best thing to do. Up early to prepare with local friends for dinner for 12 at 5, I cleaned, did laundry, walked the dogs, and made lunch while they got truly last minute crazy.... ah, scrubbing the floor of the bathroom on hands and knees is one thing but actually sealing the floor and redoing grout... how we must impress! But Oh how that bathroom sparkled!

In the process we found light bulbs that needed to be replaced, made extra trips to garbage cans and charity bins, and discovered a pecan pie recipe that had to be tried.

We also found a mouse, a dead mouse, in their doggie's bed.

Their dog is a huntress.  She outdoes the cat.

I didn't want to be the one to pick it up and throw it out somewhere.

Everything wants to live.

It was blustery, damp, dusky and cool outside.

Warm inside and the smells of cooking lured.

Who could blame the mouse for wanting inside and finding a way?

Instead it was his death.

That night I thought I heard another mouse rummaging through my bags in the closet.

The sound of tiny footfalls.

My dog was sound asleep in the bed with me.

And then I heard slurps at my dog's water bowl.

Little mousy slurps.

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