Entry Twenty-five

Janice exited the large, gray, stucco building from the side entrance, dropping her exactly 112 steps away from the lot where her car was parked. As she slid her security badge into her purse it started raining. Not a hard, apocalyptic rain but more what her mom would refer to as a “mizzle,” which was one of a thousand descriptors her mom makes up when she can’t recall the globally accepted phrase. She then incorporates it into common conversation until it is Webster’s ready and becomes a part of her every day speech. In mom-speak, a “mizzle” describes a rain that is at the exact point on its evolutionary journey between a mist and a drizzle. Regardless of the noun used to describe it, a mizzle is an annoying weather system. Janice hesitated under the awning and thought, “What looks more ridiculous: using an umbrella when it’s barely drizzling or walking through the mist and not using the umbrella you are obviously carrying?” The indecisive insight was another gift from mom, one in which Janice doubted mom had created a word for since she would deny she possessed that gift. And then she wouldn’t. And then she would.

All words and images ©2005/J. Colle