Wordsmith.org: Monish

My achy-breaky lower body—the squeaky knees and give-up groin—monish me to rest, but I disobey; Christopher Cross ("Say You'll  Be Mine"), Great Big Sea ("Can't Stop Falling") and Madonna ("Respect Yourself")—my iPod disciplinarians—order me to keep dancing, sweating, living.

Thesaurus.com: Abstergent

"We prize them for their rough-plastic, abstergent force; to get people out of the quadruped state; to get them washed, clothed, and set up on end; to slough their animal husks and habits; compel them to be clean; overawe their spite and meanness, teach them to stifle the base, and choose the generous expression, and make them know how much happier the generous behaviors are.'' -Ralph Waldo Emerson ("Conduct of Life"), as quoted at Thesaurus.com.

Ralph Waldo's words inspire me to create a more abstergent inner aura as I center myself in this new day, full of promise, adventure and service.

Oxford English Dictionary: Moonball

Uncle Danny knew I wasn't the next John McEnroe, so he let me have fun launching erratic serves and lobbing wild moonballs.

M-W.com: Frolic

Whenever I gaze upon an unfrozen pond, I envision its potential, come February, for frolicking about on sharpened skates.

WordSmart: Counterpoint

I enjoy classical music for its counterpoints, those mingling melodies, and Boston Baroque exudes quietude that calms my runaway mind.

Thesaurus.com: Chockablock

Although Boston's Esplanade will be crammed with Yankee Doodle dandies and the Charles River chockablock with boats, grateful US citizens will celebrate the Fourth of July in peaceful fashion.

M-W: Wetware

Rapid advancements in hardware, middleware and software can boggle the brain; before I deploy these fast and flexible technologies each day, I find it helpful to first reconfigure my mind, to the slowest possible setting, and to calm my installed-before-birth wetware.

WordSmart: Acerb

A crunchy, acerb apple—I prefer a Granny Smith, a.k.a.,Green Delicious—and a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese make for a tasty mid-afternoon snack.

Wordnik: Estivation

While the classic New Englander might find a summer vacation on Cape Cod idyllic, I prefer the less-populated paradise of St. Andrews-by-the-Sea, NB for my estivation.

Thesaurus.com: Penseé

Today's word of the day morphs into today's thought for the day as I share another personal hockey penseé, this one again pertaining to the type of puck-moving implement I prefer: Wood is good. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

The Learning Network (NY Times): Alloy

My wallet and my hockey gloves bond better with simple wooden hockey sticks, so I eschew the expensive contraptions manufactured with steel alloys.

M-W Word of the Day: Pungent

I was going to use a hockey reference, something like sweaty socks and unwashed hockey gear, to highlight today's word. However, M-W's example beat me to the punge, as it were, as today's entry cites a stellar hockey sentence from Chip Scoggins.

So here's my sentence: Is it not odd and wonderful that a frightened (or dead in the road) skunk's pungent stench is similar to the aromatic quality of certain brewed coffees?