Word of the Year: Normal

I know that it is only June but I think it is important to start thinking about what this year’s word of the year will be. At the end of the year the dictionary folks get together and look back on the year and ask what new word out there is this year’s defining word.

In year’s past the word has been related to texting or maybe computer lingo or what have you. With this year’s wild and wacky start I think we have a few options.

The first one is obviously social distancing. The next one is shelter in place and the last one is new normal. I’m sure you are thinking, “But those are more than one word and individually they are already in the dictionary.”

There is a simple fix: Social-distancing; Shelter-in-place and New-normal. Now we can find a place in the dictionary for these words. I’m hoping that something wonderful will take place in the second half of the year so that we can forget about these words.

I hope you had as exciting of a week as I did. It started off on Monday with a trip to get my haircut. How exciting was that for me? You have no idea. Yes it was just me and Kim and we both were wearing our masks. The door was locked so no one else would be able to be inside the premises. It was great to be able to get my haircut and visit and laugh. I did wake up very light-headed the next morning. Yes, my hair was very long.

On Tuesday I was able to go to a live in person meeting. We were careful and our tables were arranged safely. It was so much better than the phone meetings. We could see each other and it went smoothly. Phone meetings are not a lot of fun because too many times more than one person talks at the same time and it gets very confusing.

We’ve been able to go to restaurants and eat inside rather than take out or curbside delivery. It is much more enjoyable. We are hoping to hit a few more of our favorite spots soon.

We went to the dentist on Friday. How cool is that? Well when we walked in they took our temperature upon entering the office and mine was 96.4, to which my wife said, “You’re cold!” Yes, I’m cold and I’m fine with that.

As far as my sports viewing for the week let’s just say that I’m not having a lot of real excitement watching classic college football, classic Major League Baseball, reruns of past Super Bowls or even some of the college basketball games from this past year.

On Sunday, May 31 I was checking things out on the different stations and was watching a program that I must have been interested in and at the commercial break I started checking out some other channels. I clicked on Root Sports and it said Sunday night classics. It was showing the National Championship Football game from January 2011 between Delaware and Eastern Washington University.

I saw this game start to finish when it took place live and I can guarantee you that the first 2 ½ quarters were not fun to watch at all. So I flipped back to what I was watching and now and then check out where the EWU game had progressed to. Once the game was at about six minutes to go in the third quarter it was time to watch. Delaware was winning 19-0 and the Eagles didn’t have a lot of life. But that all changed from that point on and the Eagles would rally to win 20-19 which really defined the entire 2010 EWU football season. In other words, never leave the stadium early because the game wasn’t over until the Eagles said it was. And it usually ended in a crazy come from behind, how did that happen, victory. That was the best of sports for me this week. But I do have to say that I have watched parts of a few old NCAA football games with Keith Jackson calling the action, and boy is his voice missed.

I have had the opportunity to visit with a few people lately and I am optimistic when I hear them say they can’t wait to get back to normal. Which, in conclusion, I hope the word normal becomes the word of the year for 2020.