All’s quiet on the western front. Derek is in California for 12 days, we went to the movie store yesterday and loaded up on Max and Ruby, Bugs Bunny, and Super Mario Brothers, the boys’ bedroom is free of anything marring the fluffy pile carpet floor, as is the living room, the lawn is mowed (mown?), there’s no water in the basement (thanks to my daily vigilance with the shop-vac), nobody has been abused, there is relative sanity, and even, dare I say, peace in our Derek-less home. We had lemon-ricotta pancakes for dinner. The kids ate what I made. Well, I made lemon-ricotta pancakes, so if they hadn’t eaten them, I would have had to give them back and exchange them for humans.

I was cleaning the kitchen (!) and came upon a list. I am a list-maker. I list the items I require from the supermarket, or Target, or the library. I list the things I would like to do today, next week, next year. I list the things our house needs, the things I wish for, the things to pack for Derek when he goes to California for 12 days.

So this list had one item, among many, that was curious. Now it’s up to you, dear reader, to determine what the list was listing. The word is PLOX. What is plox, you ask? Well, if you were in 6th grade, it would look like this:

27. Plox
a) a communicable disease whose symptoms include rosy patches on the skin
b) events in a story, or, in this case, a series of stories
c) multiple distinct points on a graph
d) a groundcover with spring blossoming flowers
e) please and/or thank you
f) your head asplode

So what’s my list? I’ll give you a hint. There were other items on the list that also came from the Latin root for “flame.”

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