Today's AWAD is:

repine (ri-PYN) verb intr.

1. To feel discontent; to fret.

2. To yearn for something.

[From re- + pine, from Middle English, from Old English pinian (to suffer). Ultimately from Indo-European root k(w)ei- that's also the source of words such as pain, penal, punish, impunity, and subpoena.]

I won't repine about today's AWAD because it's a piece of cake to bake one into a limerick -- at least, compared to yesterday's AWAD.

"Presentism" was so tough we only had two ALADs. Fortunately, one of them was a "Pabst Blue Ribbon" entry [designed to win easy favor with themilum]. [Themilum is the "self-annointed" arbiter of the best limerick heads around here, for those of you who don't already know that.]

I haven't got too much to say about "repine" myself, other than to say that some people make a full-time occupation out of it. There's always a cloud in the sky for some people. Reminds me of that "Snoopy" character.

Remember that old WWI song. "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile." All the repiners I have ever met are always "unpacking" their kit bag. And they never smile.

Come to think of it, when was the last time you saw a smiley around here? Some old-timers don't even approve of smileys. Does that mean they're repiners? I don't think so. It just means they're sick and tired of smiley faces. So I use :) instead.

It's a good idea to stay on the right side of old-timers 'cause if you stick around here long enough, you're going to end up as an old-timer yourself. Hmmm. That could be something to repine about.

Now I remember that "Snoopy" character's name. It's "Linus".
Wherever Linus goes, a cloud goes with him. I think they call it "the Linus effect".

Anyway, you can pretty much see a cloud following a repiner around wherever they go. Unless the repiner is a yearner.

There are fewer yearners than fretters as repiners go. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. But, it's easy to tell the difference. A fretter is always looking down in the mouth, and a yearner is always looking up although he's always down in the mouth as well.

The eyes give them away. A fretter wants to stay down, and a yearner wants to be somewhere else. But neither one of them ever goes anywhere else. They just hang around and repine.

You know, it suddenly occurs to me that repiners could be repiners because they're a lot smarter than the rest of us. Perhaps the rest of us are not smart enough to repine all the time. Check this out and you'll see what I mean:

LUCY: If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations...what do you think you see, Linus?

LINUS: Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean...that cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor...and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen...I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side....

LUCY: Uh huh....that's very good....what do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?

CHARLIE BROWN (growing alarmed): Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind!

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