Denigrate:

     Verb: Criticize unfairly; disparage: "there is a tendency to denigrate the poor".
     Synonyms :blacken - slander - defame - vilify - asperse - malign

I sent this definition to my son in an email this morning. Because last night at dinner I reminded my husband that job interviews resulting in no job should never be a source of self denigration. Job interviews, especially at his level, are a HUGE compliment. My son questioned the meaning of denigration. I pointed to the dictionary we keep on the coffee table. (Which we should probably rename the dinner table, since it's where we eat dinner.) It turns out denigration is not included in our unabridged dictionary.

Unabridged

     1: not abridged : complete <an unabridged reprint of a novel>

     2: being the most complete of its class

If someone were to try and explain unschooling to me right now, if I had never heard of it, I would assume I was talking to a crazy person. Unschooling sounds like unbounded and total bullshit, even to me. Even rereading my own writing here, unschooling sounds like unbounded and total bullshit. Of course, I have a lot to learn about writing...

As I write this morning I am also boiling presoaked beans to presoak them an extra hour while I'm out walking with a friend, (after I milk the goats.) And I'm making cinnamon oatmeal with currents for breakfast. I want to simmer and type at the same time, but I hate the sound of our timer. I'll have no alarms shattering this delicious quiet morning. So I had the bright idea to look for a youtube timer. They exist and I set one. When next I looked at it, it read 32 seconds and my first thought was: What bullshit, this thing doesn't work at all! There was a confused pause in my mind. My next thought was: Oh, four and half minutes have passed, right. 

While my son was looking up the meaning of denigration other words snagged his attention. Because that's what happens to humans who read the dictionary. He noticed that "cut" has 82 definitions, which reminded him of this day.