What memory image does this word conjure in your mind?

Shield something I need right now a shield of patience.

Nappies

Nappies.....uhmmmm.......

These days a slang word for disposable diapers....

but I will rather associate them with little naps or Cat Naps...something Runesmisstress also need....me thinks....

But for the sake of this game (where it should remind us of something) nappies bring to memory my childhood years where I would watch the neighbours nanny hanging the purest white nappies on their washing line, and then chasing the dog who tries to catch them as they flap in the wind. She was a matronly old woman, stout and reserved, but chasing after the dog with the washing basket just made me fold over with laughter...

CANDYFLOSS

love and rainbows

Raka

I used to love it when the travelling fair came to the fairground at the end of our street. Once a year of rides,sideshows, candyfloss but the one sideshow I elaways wanted to go in but never managed ( too young) was the striptease.
So of course the word is...................













mystery (gotcha)

The word rune comes from the Norse runa which means mystery. Not just an alphabet, but primarily a mystical symbolism, the runes whisper their secrets...



Runes, 11x15 watercolor by artist Theresa M.Quirk: http://www.quirkworks.com/gallery/html/gallery.html

WHIPSER

Oh so funny, the word vampire means a lot to me right now as I call my daughter a 'Milk Vampire' as she "Wants to suck my Miiiiiilk....Mwhahahahahah!"


Pink Champagne

Nothing comes to my mind with pink champagne. Then it hits me. My Little Pony. A reference that would take too long to explain (but, hey, just skip to the bottom if it gets too specific). I watch a TV (aka telly) show with my daughter called Gilmore Girls. In one episode there is this pink and sweet alcoholic drink that is neon pink and, according to the male lead, it is a dreadful drink, like drinking a My Little Pony:


Popular toy from the 80's, still popular now.

TOME

Tome.... that reminds me of the big massive leather bound books held at the library that i could barely lift when i was a youngster. I always thought a tome spelt bad news and disaster lol!

pumkin

There are a couple of aqua - aqua dente a great Portugese drink (still drinking mine from a trip 3 years ago and Aqua the Euro pop group who can forget their memorable hit 'Yes sir I can boogie'. Now I come to think about it there was another Aqua who had a hit with Barbie - very risque lyrics. I was coming back from Italy with one of my blackbelts (a very handsome Italian) and on the ferry there were about 3 bus loads of Dutch teenage girls, the song was on the jukebox and they kept dancing past Valerio singing about being his Barbie and he could undress them anywhere, the poor guy was frothing at the mouth.
So the word is jukebox .

I remember the jukebox in my Dad's soda shoppe. Put lots of nickels (and then quarters) into it. I remember playing Proud Mary and Rebel, Rebel in that ol' machine. Ahhh, the ol' soda shoppe. A tradition from the past that is no more. When the soda shoppes disappeared, my dad turned it into a family restaurant which really means a greasy spoon. Or at the best, a coffee shop, and all the cops did hang out there. He never changed the name of the restaurant, even after the change in format. The name of the restaurant was...

CANDYLAND

Hey, Skyye, here's your roadmap for planning the road trip:



I think I see Plumpy hanging out by the Gingerbread tree... which leads me to Gingerbread. A bunch of images come to mind here. There's the gingerbread house, both of fairy tale, and Christmas tradition, and I've been guilty of snacking on shingles, to be sure, and drove my ex-wife crazy.

But back to Hansel and Gretel, which I suspect heavily influenced the Candyland game. Like so many tales of old, this wasn't originally meant for kids and the kids going into the woods is about the family deliberately abandoning the children because of famine. A very good wiki on the history of Hansel and Gretel is here. I always (apparently even at a young age) appreciated the notion of the heroine for it is Gretel that saves the day in the classic tale. Maybe it's due to the fact that the female (in some ways) seemed more admirable to the male growing up. (Girls would play jacks while the boys would wrestle, and the boys struck me as uncouthe, savage). I suspect Gretel was one of my first (of many) admired heroines...



HEROINE

Heroine: Today the wee one dressed as supergirl for the borders riding of the marches. A tv heroine but one none the less. she won a medal so she was even more pleased and now won't take her costume off lol!

Kermit

Kermit is a file transfer protocol developed by Columbia University, more on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_(protocol)...

Okay, okay. Kermit invokes images of a lovable green frog muppet, as so:



My ex was a big fan of The Muppet Show, one of her more endearing qualities. Muppets were everywhere back then and were more than just Sesame Street characters. Skyye can attest to that whom I suspect is a fan of Labyrinth where they made all sorts of appearances. (Ello, Skyye!)

EDUCATIONAL

Mmmm Yummy Crab, well maybe not the ones I am about to describe for you. When I was in the Navy the ship I was on patrolled just of Christmas island for illegal fishermen and refugee boats. On the rare occasion when we came to anchor we were allowed to go a shore or stepping as navy personnel would discribe it. On one of these occasions I was allowed to compete in the Hash House Harry run, I think that is what it was called. It consisted in running throught he jungle stopping half way and skulling a beer, which I refused to do as nothing worse then skulling a beer when you can't catch your breath...lol. Before we got to this point I was running along through the jungle occasionally sucking water from my camel back when I was startled by the biggest crab you would have ever seen. I jumped over it squealing like a little girl and tripped over some volcanic rocks. Well down I went and cut open my palm which was already blistered up from a game of deck soccer where we all had to crab walk around the deck kicking the ball to one another. The blood was bright red by one of the Chief Petty Offices almost collided with me and help me up and we ran on laughing at the noise I had made when I noticed the giagantic crab...lol


Rain

Makes me think of the expression raining cats and dogs which some say has a connection to Norse legend. In their explanation of meterological phenomena, cats were considered to greatly influence the weather, especially rain, and dogs to a lesser degree. Heavy rain as supposed to be the result of feline and canine influence. A more amusing explanation comes from medieval Britain (which sees it fair share of rain). When the rain came, cats and dogs (although hard to see the dogs doing this...) would scamper up the side of the home and take refuge in the warmth and dryness of the space there. When the rain came, the roof would leak, and the animals would vacate their comfy hidey-holes, literally raining on the residents, hence raining cats and dogs...

CAT

Cat: I came home from my holiday today and the cat had left me a present, the innards of a large rabbit. Little horror has quite clearly been hunting again. He is a very handsome cat who loves me to bits and hates all other human beings but he is a hunter through and through.



crystal

Crystals are very popular in healing and other metaphysical processes and phenomena I don't really understand that well. Nevertheless, I do own the one crystal, a little amethyst I have named Ishtar, after the Babylonian (and Sumerian) Goddess of Love. A strange choice for a would-be Norsemen, I suppose, but then again I'm...

STRANGE

Strange.........
I'm going to quote the old Cream song 'Strange Brew'.
Has a chorus of 'Killing what's inside of you'.
Which is my aim.
So by extention, it goes magic bullet, werewolf, Werewolves of London, underground station (we call it the tube in GB).
So

Tube

Earl if you get a chance to watch the series Rome of HBO, do so. It is fantastic.

Tube is slang for television in the USA. Often called the Bob Tube, for lack of quality programming. Hmmm, underground station is as Britspeak as the tube. In the US, we call it the subway. There are localized names within the US for specific underground rapid transit systems in different cities. In Massachusetts, we call it The T, T standing for trolley, I suspect, or transit, I'm not really sure. While it sounds like a stupid nickname, it is officially endorsed by the MBTA (Mass Bay Transit Authority):


Yes, I know this subway train is above ground. It goes underground once it enters Boston city limits.

Anyway, the Prof did mention the tube...er...telly... er... TV and mentioned the series Rome which I am unfamiliar with. Probably because I do not subscribe to HBO because of the expense I watch little television programming, relying more on my own choices on DVD. What was the last DVD I watched? Oh yes, Scourge of Worlds. A must-see for the D&D fan, others probably would want to skip it.

WORLD

WORLD-brings to mind the most recent picture from one of the space satellites of our big beautiful blue marble, it was truly magnificent and how cool it would be to see our world from space.

Lets see, a new word.......

WATERFALL

I once visited Niagara Falls, it was about 20 years ago. A-whole-nuther lifetime ago.

LIFE

life.

That word always reminds me of the book Stranger in a strange land. Near the end, it was decided that human kind could not have a non violent life as it was needed to weed out the weak. I remember being shocked by that thought and how casual life is. Where as to me life was so precious a gift to be treasured.

Mars