Today's word

métier \MET-yay\ - 1. vocation, trade 2. an area of activity in which one excels : forte

Name that adage: Having many skills, yet no métier.

I'd seen this word before, but not often nor for a long while.  I'd have understood it had I seen it in context, I think.

A strange series of anxious dreams

• My coworker Chris was parked beside a pair of railroad tracks with an additional spur on the other side of them, working on a basic geometry problem of some sort.  I pulled up parallel to her but facing the opposite direction, parked between the tracks, in a sheriff's cruiser, not clear of either of them, in uniform.  I was able to help her resolve the problem.  Then a train began to approach from in front of me, so I pulled across the other track, now perpendicular to them, with the cruiser mostly on the track, facing the spur.  Just as the train passed, another began to approach from the opposite direction on the track I was now straddling, so I frantically tried to reverse off the track.  But my wheels kept spinning on the gravel as I tried to go backward, then forward, several times.  They finally found purchase, and I pulled forward and drove away down Fort Smallwood Road in Pasadena, MD, near where I grew up.  I was concerned about being in trouble with my department because of the gravel damage to the paint, and for putting myself into the dangerous position to begin with.  There was something else about only being a one-day-per-week (Monday) augmentee, and about Chris having more math to work on but it would be fine.
   
• I was walking along US35, trying to get to a restaurant, on a Saturday morning.  Suddenly I was barefoot on a hot morning, struggling (it felt like uphill and upwind, though there didn't appear to be either) to make progress along MD route 100 (westbound, toward an exit that was a cross between Catherine Avenue off of 100 and Grange Hall Rd. off of I675) toward the restaurant, when my manager, Don, walked up behind me.  We paused beneath an overpass, then continued along our way, and when we finally approached the next exit we decided he would continue ahead and I would turn around and walk back toward my home.on Mountain Road.  Along the way I was on the other side of a water-filled culvert (which doesn't exist) and tried to cross at a dangerous  point, but Don hollered to me to keep going and look for a safer place.  Now making quick progress (again, it felt as if I was now going downhill and downwind, though there were still neither) I soon found one, and when I reached the bridge at which we'd paused earlier, there was a cell phone and iPad on a square card table. I wasn't sure if they were Don's, so I grabbed them in case.  When I got home I continued to puzzle over them, but couldn't unlock either to ascertain whether they were his.  I finally (late afternoon) remembered I had Don's cell phone number in  my own phone, and the phone in front of me rang when I dialed it.  I then realized I also had his home phone (I don't), so called him.  He was terribly relieved I'd found them, as he was just getting ready to replace them already.  I delivered them to his house (he actually lives in a trailer) in Medway.
   
• After this dream and before the next, there was at least one other anxious dream that I can't recall  now.
   
• I  was swimming in a pool, which became a large lake, with dolphins.  After a while, I was flying above the clear water, which was now more of a large lake, and could see the dolphins, along with a whale/shark in the water.  Then I was in the now-smaller pool water again, and the whale/shark wasn't going to bother me, but a young woman - a nanny, it seemed - came along and set out some curved, interlocking, accordion-like sections of wood planking to serve as walkways over the water.  Now the children began to swim, too, and I was concerned about their safety as swimmers and with the whale/shark present, so I swam with them to protect them.  Suddenly the whale/shark and a dolphin began fighting quite near us, and I looked down in the water where the youngest girl had sunk to the (8') bottom of the pool.  She was Marta von Trapp, from the movie (after all, I have no idea what the real Marta looked like) and I pulled her up from the bottom, and we were frantically trying to revive her.  We were going to be able to, but hadn't succeeded yet when I awoke.

Today's words

eurytopic \yur-ih-TAH-pik\ - tolerant of wide variation in one or more environmental factors

Usually used of species, though may be applicable to coworkers, too, along with its antonym "stenotopic."

sangfroid\SAHNG-FRWAH\ - self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain

Likewise applicable to one's more agreeable coworkers.

factotum \fak-TOH-tuhm\ - 1. a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities  2. a general servant

And, in its first sense, applicable to me as a coworker. (Or, at least, I'd like to think so.)

Reflecting on the otherwise unimportant

Boy, that was some ride last night.  What a day, what an evening, and what a day!  Now to shop for cool stuff!

My feelings are a bit weird.  The role of faith is a fascinating topic.  I don't think, as Ray Lewis seems to, that the Ravens won because God wanted them to and it was his plan.  I do believe, though, that God is glorified when those who endeavor to do big things do so in his name.  I'm gladder for a lot of the Ravens other than Ray than I am for him, as if his faith is as authentic as it seems God was going to be working through him anyway, win or lose, and if he's a fraud I'd have rather he fell short.  But to hear John Harbaugh acknowledge the role of Ray's faith in driving him was also very nice.  Still, I am convinced that it was not so much a matter of it being God's will that the Ravens would win as of it being God's will that he should be glorified whoever won.  

This has been a way fun year.  As I've posted elsewhere, the last time I rooted for both my MLB and my NFL team in the postseason of the same year, I was only 11 years old!  But far more important is to not get too caught up in all of that, and enjoy the blessings God gives while serving according to his

I needed us to have that talk

It didn't go as I would have liked, but that frustration has been building for an unspeakably long time.  I don't know that it's going to make any difference, but if it doesn't, it won't be because I didn't give you a chance to do anything about it.

Today's word

amortize \AM-er-tyze\

I've known this word for decades, but have always mentally mispronounced it (\uh-MOR-tyze\).  I've also never considered this, from the WOTD write-up:

"When you amortize a loan, you 'kill it off' gradually by paying it down in installments."  (Which, may I say, fits my pronunciation better than it does the correct one.)

A close encounter

Okay, we were both mostly asleep.  Sorry for waking you ( - I hope you wouldn't define it as "rudely" - ), and sorry it didn't work out . . .