Argle-Bargle (AKA Tuesday’s Tidbits)

+ My Word-of-the-Day daily email taught me “argle-bargle”, today. This is what the meaning is of argle-bargle: “Copious but meaningless talk or writing; nonsense.” It’s a great word. I’ve honestly never seen the word, “argle-bargle”, nor heard the word, “argle-bargle” other than today (honestly, sometimes the Word-of-the-Day tends to get a little “out there” and obscure when it comes to their word choices, in my opinion, but I’m hooked. I read the words daily and I even sometimes try to incorporate some of these words into my own argle-bargle, as I am doing so today.) Admit it. Argle-bargle is a fun word. Try saying it three times fast: Argle-bargle. Argle-bargle. Argle-bargle.

+ The best quote I have read this week (and you know that I love me some great quotes) is this one: “The future has an ancient heart.” – Carlo Levi (Incidentally one of my most kind and loyal, longtime readers, Gail, recommended a book in my Comments recently, and I immediately downloaded it. It is an excellent book and this is where I read the quote. The book is called Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed, who also wrote Wild, which was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon) Anyway, “The future has an ancient heart” speaks to me. It is so true and so comforting. It suggests that whatever we are meant to do, and to learn, and to become, is already imprinted in our most primal, wisest DNA. It will find its way out, through many channels, in our lifetimes, individually and collectively. If you ever need to just “let go”, use this quote as your mantra. It’s now going to become one of my own regular mantras. Thank you, Gail, for your most excellent recommendation. This line from the book, alone, is life-changing.

+ I had an experience over the weekend that I’m sure could have probably made a viral Tik-Tok (although I’m honestly not a Tik-Tok fan, so I don’t really know. I’ve always preferred words over video.) We were visiting our son in a major city in our country, and while he was doing his schoolwork, my husband and I visited a swanky section of town for some lunch and some shopping. I found a delightful boutique full of unusual artsy stuff (my favorite kind of shopping) and I decided to purchase a bracelet in the shop. My husband was doing his own thing outside (small artsy boutiques are not his favorite kind of shopping. I’m not sure that my husband actually has a favorite kind of shopping.) The cashier was perhaps a few years older than me (probably in her late 50s) and she mentioned that this boutique was not actually her store, but it was her daughter’s store, and she was just trying to help her daughter out for the afternoon. What ensued next became two technologically challenged middle-aged women trying to figure out how to pay for my item, with the daughter on a Facetime call, trying to guide us through the whole process (“I think that we press this button” . . . “No! No! No! Don’t press that button!” . . . .”The green one!! Green!!”) and then for the cherry on top, add-in the shop-owner’s father, also a technologically challenged middle-ager, who did not have his readers on, and thus promptly pressed a “7” instead of a “1” which almost made me pay seven times what I was supposed to pay, if we hadn’t been saved by hearing his daughter screaming through the phone: “Abort! Cancel the transaction! RED button! RED!!” In the end we got “the system” to work correctly, and I paid the fair price for my lovely bracelet. And the whole time I was thinking, if my kids had been in the shop and had gotten this on video, I might be Tik-Tok famous right now.

+Congratulations, you made it to the end of today’s argle-bargle.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.