Maundering is Irksome

There is a vocabulary--perhaps many vocabularies--particular to old age.

Two words that have come into mine are, "maundering," and "irksome."

"WHY are you maundering around all over the place?" said I one night, as my aged husband maundered about the house in the dark.

And I wondered, "Where did that word come from, anyway?" It certainly was not in my vocabulary before.  And yet--it was the very word to describe his perigrinations, pointless and non-goal-oriented as they were.

I even looked it up in the dictionary.  It is something like wandering, without the intent of the journey.  A very apt word for the journeys of the elderly (I thought.)

And there's the word, "irked."  And, "irksome."  My mother was often irked, but I never in my life was irked at all--until lately. Now I am irked all the time.  I find many things irksome: junk mail, the gaggle of scarecrows running for president under the flag of a Party which shall be nameless, the fact that I don't have a dishwasher or a proper oven.  Irked I am, and irked I may remain.

We are contracting for a remodeled kitchen. As soon as it gets nice, we'll doubtless sell the house before I have a chance to get the kitchen all grimy. And that will be the most irksome thing of all. YAZZYBEL