It's baaaack ... 
I spoke too soon. The Lucida Grande 'contortions' have returned.
If I were to guess, it would seem that something — either periodically or spasmodically — has corrupted that particular font in one or more ways to the point that Microsoft Word finds it necessary to try to fix it but cannot.
I can determine no inciting cause or situation. It can happen under virtually any circumstance, whether I'm online or not, with no common precursors. It seems to run itself randomly (and sometimes exasperatingly temporally repeatedly). [Whew! How's that for 3 adverbs in a row?]
So, unless someone has a brilliant idea about how to deal with it, I'm just going to have to ignore/endure it.
