The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the 2005 winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the
subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until
you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops
bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows
little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of
getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the
person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

12. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these
really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like,
a serious bummer.

13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day
consuming only things that are good for you.

14. Glibido: All talk and no action.

15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when
they come at you rapidly.

16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after
you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into
your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in
the fruit you're eating.





The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:

1. coffee, n. the person upon whom one coughs.

2. flabbergasted, adj. appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. abdicate, v. to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. esplanade, v. to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. willy-nilly, adj. impotent.

6. negligent, adj. absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. lymph, v. to walk with a lisp.

8. gargoyle, n. olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. flatulence, n. emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. balderdash, n. a rapidly receding hairline.

11. testicle, n. a humorous question on an exam.

12. rectitude, n. the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. pokemon, n. a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. oyster, n. a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. the belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. circumvent, n. an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Thought for the day.....
In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the anti-American
sentiment and negativity, we should remember England's Prime Minister Tony
Blair's words during a recent interview. When asked by one of his
Parliament members why he believes so much in America , he said:

"A simple way to take measure of a country is
to look at how many want in ... And how many want out."
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:

1. Jesus Christ
2. The American G. I.

One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

At times when my grandmother talked to me her voice would take on a higher pitch like singing when she got excited. Besides spending many, many weekends there, I was there on Sundays and holidays. I remember after school on Fridays (grade school) packing my bag and waiting anxiously to go there for the weekend. I cried hysterically when I had to go home. I just loved staying at my grandparents. Both sets of grandparents. I knew I was lucky then, but now, I realize just HOW lucky I was to have them, all of them, for so many years. Our lives were such that facilitated lots of time together. Now my kids are so busy with things for school, sports, and work and my parents are not around the corner (although one set of my grandparents lived in NJ, too) and my in laws are deceased. I have all boys too...I do not think boys have the same feelings about hanging with their family as girls.

My mother used to pack us up on Saturdays (change of clothes, pajamas, all the food specialties from the city: soft pretzels, freshly made mozzarella, just baked Italian bread and rolls) and drive to Pennsauken for the whole entire day. My grandmother would be there waiting and we would have the whole day with her and my grandfather and my aunts and cousins and for me and my sister and brother and cousins...sometimes, the whole weekend. My grandmother spent all her time at home...she wore no red hats, she never went out to lunch or dinner with friends, she never worked, she cooked and cleaned and played bingo. Her daughters were her girl friends.

Later, when I was older and even married I would go to my grandmother's (in the city) house on Thursdays for lunch. I would eventually take my kids there, too. One time my third son choked on a sourball from the candy dish...and the Hiemlich manuveur facilitated that candy sailing through the kitchen and hitting the stove in a life saving timely way. Lunch was usually Italian meats such as Capicola, Prosciutto, and cheeses, salad, bread, homemade lentil soup, or chicken or eggplant and zucchini parmigiano,tea and coffee, tea biscuits, cinnamon buns. I would go on and on about our plans and our ideas. I conjured up the whole plan to open my own home care agency to her. She would shuffle around the kitchen and "sing": "you remind me of your grandfather", "you have big ideas Debbie, big ideas"! I also planned a storybook life with a husband who is like a prince to me, four or more children, and a great house with large dinners and holiday celebrations. I planned to bake hundreds and hundreds of cookies for Christmas and to have my kids spend their entire childhood summers at the shore. I planned to work full time while being an attentive mom and wife. I planned to reach for what I wanted and work hard for it all.

My mom would sometimes sing song a holler or two at us, too. I remember being like my 18 year old son...where everyday was another plan, another adventure, another idea. "You know you have big ideas!", she would sing. (My grandmother was not her mother, but, her mother in law). I do not remember being so encouraged when I announced I would be going to Nursing School. My father shook his head saying "Do you know what nurses do?" "It's a dirty job, a dirty job"! My mom said, when I took Chemistry at night after graduating high school so I could get in Nursing School, "you better learn how to type"! That turned out to be good advice since all I do for one reason or another is type and I love that I type the correct way..and fast...and accurate. I remember taking lessons at night school in sewing and Italian language, too. (I'd be thrilled if my kids went to night school. Thrilled!) When I moved out into my own apartment after graduating Nursing School you would think I joined a cult the way my father ignored the whole thing. He never even seen my apartment. Women and independence didn't seem right. And in my family with small ideas and traditional values, a girl moving out before she got married was just not the right thing to do. Even guys didn't do that...hence the middle aged Italian man that still lives with his mama...it is still common today. Especially in Italy. I think of my four sons and if I really want them here when they are 40?????

I think back to famous Italians who's ideas were monstrous and shake my head. Italian men and women like Maria Montessori, Michaelangelo, Puccini, Rossellini, Fellini, Umberto Eco, Dante Alighieri, the wonderful cooks and bakers and murano glass blowers, and wine makers, designers, musicians, soccer players, bikers, Gucci, Pucci, Armani, Fendi, Rucci, Rita Levi Montalcini (nobel prize winner in Medicine), Ella Grasso, Sophia Loren, Camille Puglia, Rose Pansella. I wonder what their mom's and dad's and grandmom's had to say about their big ideas.

I certainly do not put myself in the same class as those mentioned as far as intelligence or artistic talent or level of genius. I do, however, feel that big ideas had to be the start of all of their accomplishments.

Now, I understand that the ideas meant different things to different people. I never saw the dangers or the disappointments. My family was trying to shield me from harm, to maintain a traditional family and to understand a young girl with ideas of her own.

I moved back home after getting engaged to save money to buy a house. I was glad for the experiences of those years. I also was glad I moved back home before moving out for good. My husband always lived home except for when he lived at Law School. When my son says he wants to move out and go out and travel and buy a car and a million other things, my husband shakes his head. All I can think about is "you have big ideas, Gaetano!"

Since those times I've met lots of people. Some who's ideas seem so big to me and others who really do not reach far and wide at all. Happiness has nothing to do with any of it. I believe you can be happiest never leaving your home for some and for others the need to search and dream and create and try out ideas is a necessity. Individuals have their own levels of dreaming.

Dreaming big ideas is hard, though. It paves the way for lots of disappointment and the realization we cannot control everything we set out to control. There is luck, and fate, and life that gets in the way. Dreaming to me, though, keeps life exciting. Even when things do not turn out well or the way I think it is still usually worth the effort.

I wish my kids would have bigger ideas. Not because I want to be rid of them but because the world is so full of opportunities and interesting places and experiences that I do not want them to cut themselves short. Dreaming big for me is exciting. Lots of times I am unrealistic but it really doesn't matter. From heaven I hear her singing "You have big ideas, Debbie!"

My ideas are not so big, really.

My expectations are grand.

There was a period of time when I was young when my parents belonged to prayer groups and went to prayer meetings. The friends from those groups were always seriously smiling and praising the Lord. Of course, being an almost teenager I thought they were all a little loopy.

Deep down I really didn't think they were all that weird and in a way I thought the prayer line through the telephone was wonderful. If you had a special request or a sick child or relative you made a phone call, added the name to the list and the line of prayer partners prayed for you during their daily prayers. They seemed to pray all the time. Now we have internet prayers through e-mail and their are prayer lines too but the old way seemed more intimate. We also have the petitions on the altar and the special intentions during mass. You would think God would know about our intentions before we did so why have to ask? I've learned just like every other form of communication it makes a difference when you say it out loud. We all have a thing or two we do not like to say out loud; we may think about it but we keep it quiet. It doesn't matter but it may make you feel better if you said it, prayed for it or talked about it with someone else. That is what confession is all about. Saying your misgivings out loud is a way to free yourself of them. I have to admit I do not go to confession like I really should. I wonder how much time those priests really have? Not that I have soooo many sins, I just have lots I can talk about. Mostly kid stuff. Sometimes I think talking to another person about things makes it all seem worse. I know when my husband and I talk about the kids and our concerns I feel exhausted afterward. My kids are not bad, we just worry about them. Calling up a special intention and holding my friends hands while praying and singing and clapping sounds like a good idea right about now. Now means middle age. It means being right in the middle of all the choices you made in all of your years lived so far.

I love the Rosary. I love the feel of the beads and the solemn quiet private prayers. But I have a short attention span and I lose my place and forget what I am supposed to do next. There should be a marker of some kind so you can hold your place when interrupted. Modern Rosaries.

My sister was the one I thought drove my parents to intense praying and lots of special intentions. Now, I think she wasn't all that bad. She just didn't listen. She worried them. We all worried them. It comes with parenting. Kids are miracles when they are born but that happy scheduled lifestyle changes and as we are given back some of our free time and our kids become more self sufficient we are also given wonders and worries and thoughts about what if's? and how come's? I remember many people telling me "enjoy them while they are little", "little kids little problems, big kids big problems".

It isn't all bad stuff like I am droaning on about...there are lots of moments when you feel proud and happy and content. Then there is always the future.

The future makes me shake.

So how do you feel a bit better about all of this? I shop and eat and try to exercise. A day at a spa or a massage is a mind calmer. Yoga is very centering. But prayer really does make me feel like my thoughts are being heard. I dwell on God's will and fate. I see the miracle of the mass and take it seriously. I hear those beautiful hymn s and music and it moves me to organic emotions. Every single time.

I remember being young and feeling so overwhelmed at mass, especially at High Mass that I would cry. I could never understand it. Something comes over me that I have no control of. And it feels otherworldly.

Once my parents made us all go to a Holiday charismatic mass. We were totally embarrassed by the circle and the hand holding and the loud shouts of prayers. Part of me wanted to run and part of me was curious. I was too uptight to just fall into this place the others were in. Then, during the mass, my mother and father and many others started to pray out loud in tongues. I froze with fear. I listened. I couldn't understand the language. I didn't know what they were saying. My fear turned into that organic emotion that made me want to shout "I believe". Of course I did not.

Speaking in tongues is supposed to be the filling up with the Holy Spirit and a praying in the language of the Holy Spirit.

Some people think it is an act. Others feel it is jibberish. One article even went to the extreme of calling it schizophrenia.

The people I knew there were there for good intentions. They were seeking only enlightenment and goodness. It was easy for me to believe it. It was easier to feel it.

So now, I just want God to keep my kids safe, get them through life with awareness and happiness and goodness. I want a lot of things. I know the meaning of Life is to get us closer to God and that lots of things are meaningless. We all want to have a little bit of peace and a little fun while we are at it. Prayer helps me accept what happens and when I do not get what I want or things seems to be moving on a curve that I did not create I try not to get too upset. I try to remember God's will.

I am smart enough to know organized religion is just that "organized religion". Religion seems to be something that should not be so organized at times. I sometimes think the Catholic Church is a big business along with other religious money makers. I know it is not full of all good people. I also know life is better with it and my beliefs keep me calm and give me purpose. They guide me and give me strength. No matter what your religion (unless it includes self harm or harming others/that could never be part of something God wants us to preach), making it a part of your life has to enhance it.

I was walking the other day when a well dressed black lady walked towards me and said, "Do you know that Jesus, the son of God, loves you? Do you believe in Jesus Christ, Our Savior?"
I removed my ear plugs as I kept on walking (because you never can tell who are the real looney ones) and I said "YES, I do".

It would have been easy for me to shrug her off as crazy or it as another head shaking day in Philadelphia but then I quickly thought about all the bad things I see each day, all the litter, the crime, the degrading music, the disrespectful, the homeless, the addicted, the self centered, the people who contribute nothing substantial or good or even meaningful to the world, the over consuming, the clueless, the mean, the predators, the greedy. The lady was just trying to make a difference. It was a good thing. I realized, yet again, that prayer and mass and worshiping God is GOOD. It makes us a little better. It can only help if we let it. But we have to let it. Any other excuse is just a rationalization to get out of thinking about it.

I kept walking and she shouted back to me. "Do you tell others?" "YOU HAVE TO tell others"!

I just did.

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it"